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Action Kit to Stop CAFTAWe have entered what could be the decisive battle to end the corporate free trade agenda as we have known it for the past 15 years. On May 28, the Bush administration formally signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala have since ratified the agreement despite massive street protests and severe police repression. In the United States, CAFTA hearings began on April 13th, and now it is a crucial time to express our opposition to Bush’s dangerous free trade agenda.
CAFTA’s significance is much greater than the economic region it covers. The FTAA, Bush’s planned expansion of NAFTA to the entire western hemisphere, is stalled because key nations in South America and the Caribbean have refused to sacrifice their environmental, labor, and health standards for the sake of corporate profit. CAFTA is the FTAA’s Trojan horse, the first of several deals intended to sneak the FTAA into place piece by piece.
If Bush can get CAFTA through Congress, the FTAA will still be alive. If we can defeat it, the entire corporate free trade agenda will be in serious crisis. Stopping CAFTA will completely change the terms of the trade debate in this country. And CAFTA is very stoppable – IF we do our work well. We have to lock down votes against CAFTA now, so that whenever it comes to Congress it will lose. This is where you come in.
Your members of Congress need to hear from their constituents about CAFTA. And they need to be worked on until they state publicly they will vote against CAFTA whenever it comes up. This is a critical time to voice your opposition to CAFTA. This packet will provide you with materials to help you organize and be heard. We can help with more information and advice if you need it. But we need you to act.
We have organizers on the ground in a number of states, and coordinators overseeing work in others (see attached sheet) – if you live in one of those states, please coordinate your efforts with theirs. But act! Get together with friends and colleagues and plan to meet with your members of Congress, attend their town hall meetings, send letters to the editor to your newspaper, and do the other things this packet provides information on. Right now we have an historical opportunity to defeat the free trade agenda – don’t let it slip away!
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