Thursday, August 4, 2005
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
Julia Willebrand, Co-chair of the International Committee, 212
877-5088, julia.willebrand@verizon.net
Citing CAFTA's NAFTA-like provisions, Greens warn of damage from
water privatization, lost jobs and depressed wages, and blocked access
to medicine.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders called the
House's recent passage of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free
Trade Agreement (CAFTA) a disaster for working people in the U.S.,
Central America, and the Dominican Republic and the environmental
health and safety in the signatory nations.
"CAFTA will extend NAFTA's job loss, workers'
rights abuses, and environmental damage throughout Central
America," said Nan Garrett, Georgia Green and Spokesperson for
the National Women's Caucus of the Green Party. "It will prohibit
governments in the region from ensuring that foreign investment serves
national development goals. Instead, it'll enable further schemes for
the profit of U.S.-based corporations."
CAFTA encourages nations to privatize and
deregulate services such as education, health care, postal service,
construction, transportation, and the provision of water.
"Privatization and deregulation have proved
particularly devastating for families living in poverty," said
Julia Willebrand, co-chair of the Green Party's International
Committee. "In Bolivia, forced water privatization resulted in an
economic breakdown when poor families were forced to pay exorbitant
fees to Bechtel, a U.S.-based corporation. CAFTA will require the
officials in more than a third of Nicaragua's municipalities to open
water management to bidding by transnational companies."
Greens note that CAFTA contains a provision
similar to NAFTA's Chapter 11, which allows foreign corporations to
sue national, state, and local governments that pass strong labor,
public health, or environmental protections. Under the provision,
companies can bypass domestic courts and sue a government directly for
cash compensation if they think an environmental or public health law
might interfere with their ability to profit.
CAFTA's "data exclusivity" provisions
and monopoly protections for brand-name drug manufactureres threaten
access to affordable life-saving medicines in a region where half the
population live in poverty. According to the World Health Organization
and UNAIDS, more than 78,000 Guatemalans are HIV-infected; annual
AIDS-related deaths totaled 5,800 in 2003.
"CAFTA is modeled on NAFTA and other failed
trade policies, under which the U.S. trade deficit reached a record
$600 billion last year after American companies relocated to take
advantage of lower wages and weaker worker and environmental
protections," said Jill Bussiere, Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green
Party. "The NAFTA-related trade deficit cost U.S. workers nearly
900,000 net jobs through 2002. Companies that stayed in the U.S. used
the threat of leaving the country as a means of breaking union
organizing drives, and to win concessions at the bargaining
table."
"Despite rosy predictions from supporters
about new jobs, NAFTA continues to harm workers in the U.S. and Latin
America. CAFTA will compound the damage," added Jody Grage Haug,
who lives in Seattle, Washington and serves as co-chair of the Green
Party of the United States. "Protests similar to Seattle in 1999
may be necessary to show widespread opposition to CAFTA, but it's
equally urgent that we remove the Republicans and Democrats who voted
for it from public office."
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
Green Party International Committee
http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/
Statement on CAFTA and access to medicine
Rachel Cohen, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontierès, New
York, New York
House Committee on Ways and Means, April 21, 2005
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=printfriendly&id=2828
CAFTA Masks Hidden Water Privatization
Resource Center of the Americas.org
http://www.americas.org/item_14706
"NAFTA's cautionary tale: Recent history suggests CAFTA could
lead to further U.S. job displacement" by Robert E. Scott and
David Ratner
Economic Policy Institute, July 20, 2005, Issue Brief #214
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib214