Argentines battle police over FTAA

Thousands of Argentine workers march through Buenos Aires on Apr. 6, 2001, protesting against a meeting to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Compiled by Sean Marquis

Apr. 7— The meeting of Western Hemisphere trade officials to make progress towards the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) took place in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, which was practically under siege by heavily armed police backed by armored cars and police dogs on blockaded streets.

Anti-free trade protesters bombarded police with molotov cocktails and rocks on Friday outside a hotel where Argentine President Fernando de la Rua and Western hemisphere trade ministers were meeting with business leaders.

Dressed in riot gear, police fired rubber bullets and shot tear gas to disperse a crowd of several hundred protesters gathered at a major road intersection near the hotel.

A crowd of about 3,000 demonstrators marching nearby moved away as the violence began. Mothers held handkerchiefs to the noses of young children as tear gas clouds wafted overhead.

By the time the violence ended an hour later, police said several officers were injured. They had no count of any others hurt.

Opponents of the FTAA pact also smashed bank windows and spray-painted anti-trade slogans on buildings at an earlier thousands-strong march through Buenos Aires.

“No to free trade!” demonstrators shouted as they swarmed through the downtown area and bottle rockets lit by protesters screeched overhead.

“Political leaders, don’t come to us with this FTAA, because the FTAA is designed to exploit our people even more,” said Hugo Moyano, an official with the Argentine umbrella union General Labor Confederation (CGT). The pounding of drums and the crack of fireworks, multicolored placards inscribed with words condemning the FTAA, and giant puppets caricaturing members of the US government characterized the demonstrations.

The demonstrators, convened by students, environmental groups and unions from the countries of Mercosur (Southern Common Market - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) for three different protests, did not hold back in their condemnations of what they consider the hegemony of the United States in the region.

Thousands of Argentinians took to the streets in massive
protests against a meeting of commerce ministers from the
Americas on Apr. 7, 2001.

The rallies resounded with slogans such as “Yankees out of Latin America!’’ “Fatherland, yes! Colony, no!’’ “Fight the plots of the White House!’’

“The people realize that all that comes from the United States is not good for Latin America,’’ commented Jorge Silva, of Argentina’s Federation of Truckers.

The ministerial meeting is in part in preparation for an April 20-22 gathering of the hemisphere’s leaders in Quebec City to create a free-trade zone linking more than 783 million people who produced $11.4 trillion in goods and services in 1999.

Members of civil society groups and various political sectors came out in massive numbers to protest the lack of transparency in the negotiating process of the FTAA, saying that the accord would help line the pockets of corporate giants while exacerbating poverty for millions of Latin Americans.

The demands for social input in the process were expressed in three massive street demonstrations in Buenos Aires, organized by the major union centrals of Argentina with the heavy participation of Brazilian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan activists.

Víctor de Gennaro, the secretary general of the CTA, a union central comprised of the most outspoken syndicates, told IPS that the free trade proclaimed by the governments “is going to make the dependence of our countries (on the United States) irreversible.’’

De Gennaro, who led a march to the venue where the hemisphere’s trade ministers are meeting, charged that while most of the Argentine people are worried about surviving, the officials “are signing secret accords that are going to cause them further suffering.’’

Kjeld Jakobsen, secretary of international affairs for the Brazilian Workers’ Central (CUT), expressed a similar sentiment.

“Our interpretation is that these agreements will allow multinational corporations to make our countries more dependent, and generate higher unemployment and lower salaries,’’ he said.

Argentina’s President Fernando de la Rúa himself backed the demands coming from civil society groups.

“It is essential to disseminate (the FTAA discussions) so that dissidence and opposition does not arise, because the strength of this agreement lies in the conception of the region’s peoples supporting their democratically elected governments,’’ he stated.

But the ministers insist on holding the talks behind closed doors, thus fueling the distrust felt by those who believe the bi-continental treaty will bring nothing but misery to the region, especially in the areas of social development, employment and environmental protection.

The ministers voted down a proposal from the Canadian delegation to make the FTAA negotiating document public.

NC set to execute another mentally retarded man

Charlotte, North Carolina, Apr. 9— A mentally retarded Charlotte man convicted of killing two people in 1979 has been scheduled for execution in North Carolina April 27 - despite growing debate over whether to allow such executions.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court agreed to review whether the execution of mentally retarded killers constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and thus should be banned. The court will use the NC case of Ernest McCarver of Cabarrus County to decide the issue this fall.

That decision, however, could come too late for Charlotte’s Larry Darnell Williams, who has exhausted his appeals after 21 years on death row.

Williams’ IQ measured 69 at the time of the crime -- just below the score of 70, which is generally considered mentally retarded.

Williams was convicted in the shotgun killing of a Gaston County gas station attendant, Eric Ross Joines, on June 3, 1979, and in the killing later that night of Concord (Cabarrus Co.) convenience store clerk Susan Verle Pierce, during a robbery that netted him and an accomplice $67.27.

Williams and 3 others were arrested in connection with the crimes, but 1 defendant was acquitted and the other 2 received lighter sentences after testifying against Williams.

Juries ordered Williams to die for both crimes, but the Cabarrus County death sentence was later reversed because of errors at trial. He hasn’t been re-sentenced in that case.

The issue of Williams’ low IQ hasn’t been debated during his appeals because NC law allows for the execution of mentally retarded convicts. But his lawyers say they’ll push for a stay in Williams’ execution, now that NC lawmakers - and the US Supreme Court - are considering the legality of executing the mentally retarded.

“To execute Larry Williams now, before the US Supreme Court rules in the McCarver (retardation) case, would truly be cruel, unusual, inhumane and a travesty of justice,” said Cas Shearin, an investigator in the case.

Of 38 states that allow the death penalty, 13 already ban execution of the mentally retarded. At least seven other states, including North Carolina, are considering a ban.

Source: Charlotte Observer
For more information: People of Faith Against the Death Penalty: 919-933-7567

Europe will ratify Kyoto without US

Protesters demonstrate in front of the American
Embassy in London.

Kiruna, Sweden, Apr. 2 (ENS)-- The 15 countries of the European Union will ratify the Kyoto climate protocol by 2002 with or without American participation, Swedish Environment Minister Kjell Larsson said this weekend.

“We are going without them if they are backing out,” the current president of the European Union Environment Council said during an informal meeting of European environment ministers in the northern Swedish town of Kiruna.

“The Kyoto Protocol is still alive -- no individual country has the right to declare a multilateral agreement as dead,” reads a statement endorsed unanimously by the ministers.

Though lacking formal status, it is the first expression of collective European Union thinking on US President George W. Bush’s public rejection of the protocol.

EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom added her criticisms of Bush during the Kiruna meeting. The United States was wrong to demand immediate emission limitation targets for developing countries, she said. It is “fully expected” that they will take on concrete commitments in later implementation phases, she explained.

Wallstrom and Larsson travelled to Washington today with Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze to raise the issue with senior US government figures before visiting leaders in Japan, Russia, Iran and China.

US climate stance triggers demonstrations, boycott threats

The US decision to abandon the Kyoto protocol is sparking a wave of calls from European environmentalists and Greens for consumers to take revenge on President George W. Bush by boycotting American firms.

It remains unclear whether any will get off the ground, though companies are watching the development anxiously.

Leading the charge in favor of economic punishment to be meted out to the United States are Europe’s Greens, who sparked a vote in the European Parliament on the issue today.

Green Party lawmakers asked fellow Members of the European Parliament to back a resolution calling on European consumers to boycott Exxon, Texaco and Chevron. These three US based oil firms are suspected of having influenced America’s policy shift on the Kyoto Protocol from support under former President Bill Clinton to withdrawal under Bush.

The resolution was defeated by a margin of over three to one.

Meanwhile, boycott campaigns have been launched by some European environmental groups, such as the UK based Families Against Bush which demonstrated today outside the US Embassy in London.

Families Against Bush advocates a selective boycott of American products and services until the President supports the Kyoto Protocol and agrees to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions.

“Consumers can use the only real influence available to them and hit that part of corporate America which put Bush in power and which thinks it can get away with polluting while the rest of the world pays the price,” the group said.

“A boycott of sugar from American plantations helped stop the slave trade,” a spokesman said. “This time the quality and existence of billions of lives are ultimately under threat unless effective action is taken.”

Europe’s larger environmental groups are also examining the options for applying pressure on the US government to work with other industrizialized nations within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, an addition to the United Nations Climate Change Convention.

Greenpeace today called on America’s largest 100 firms to declare opposition to the Bush administration’s position or “face the consequences from concerned consumers, institutions and organizations from around the world.”

“We’ve been deluged with requests for campaign action or a boycott,” said Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephen Sawyer. “We want to give people a chance to make their views clear. There’s a lot of anger out there, a desire to retaliate against Bush.”

Greenpeace launched the Global Warning campaign by writing to the CEOs of the top 100 companies on the newly published Fortune 500 list, which is now led by Exxon. The CEOs were asked if their companies support the ratification and entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol or support President Bush in his opposition to the protocol.

“The American people can register their opinions at the ballot box. But for the rest of the world - shocked at the worst greenhouse polluter’s rejection of its responsibility for the global environment - all we can do is register our opinions via the marketplace,” said Dr. Gerd Leipold, Greenpeace International executive director.

In Israel, the Ale Yarok Party (Green Leaf) which supports the legalization of marijuana, held a demonstration today outside the American Embassy in Tel-Aviv protesting Bush’s refusal to endorse the Kyoto Protocol. The demonstrators were accompanied by the Circle, a group of ethnic drummers committed to drumming for peace and the environment.

In a country where criticism of the US is not popular, this day-long action was received well by Israeli passersby who showed support by honking their horns and joining the Circle.

Sawyer says Greenpeace will gather together a broad range of nongovernmental groups to organize a protest campaign after Easter.