A-Infos (en) Colombia, Libertarian Perspective Bulletin No. 4 - May 2012 - The entry into force of the FTA with the U.S. (ca) [machine translation]

A balance sheet ---- On May 15 marked the period of one month for the entry into force of 
the FTA between Colombia and the United States announced at the close of the Sixth Summit 
of the Americas by President Barack Obama. The implementation of the same, the magnitude 
of their impacts on different aspects of the production structure, will be crucial to 
setting the draft country's future. ---- The negotiation and signing of this treaty, 
rather than leading to the generation of wealth and welfare for the peoples of both 
nations, was set in an act of submission by Colombia, another one that perpetuates the 
shameful chain of historical events that for more than a century makes the country a true 
'lackey of the empire'.

What this also points to this treaty are the lines of continuity of the national project 
of the elite Colombian reprimarization doomed to the economy, the deepening of the 
extractive logic and the primacy of export-oriented production; model in favored are the 
only large and medium entrepreneurs, whose formulation meets more than two decades in the 
country, but also is part of the historic plunder our land. So. Thus, disputes between 
factions of the ruling class, condensed in the repeated clashes and misunderstandings 
between Santos and Uribe are only distracting element for understanding the structural 
picture of what the Colombian oligarchy thinks about the future of Colombia, its actors, 
objectives and beneficiaries.

Of particular concern are the consequences can be foreseen for the field, "the field in 
which all the violence in Colombia." While the United States "maintained its policy of 
protection and stabilization to agriculture through the production domestic support" 
Colombia agreed to dismantle its main agricultural policy instruments (the Andean Price 
Band Mechanism and Contingent Public Administration) and so allowed the deregulation of 
prices of sensitive products for the peasantry. Consequently, as of Tuesday May 15 began 
arriving in Colombia containers and containers loaded with thousands of tons of tomatoes, 
onions, corn, wheat, beans, peas, sorghum, soybeans, among other foods that form the basic 
diet 90% of the population, that in Colombia we can, but we have to produce for ourselves 
to grow fuel and razing lands in search of the 'Golden Legend'.

Similarly, there is no mechanism in the treaty that prevents the other party, and protect 
Colombia-increasing levels of domestic support given to agricultural products, or to 
convert the "mechanisms of protection of the border '(tariffs) in higher subsidies for the 
production of goods whose marketing could actually benefit Colombia (snuff, milk, meat). 
In this sense, the United States excluded from the program of liberalization of prices 
some products of interest to Colombia as sugar, while there was no exclusion allowed for 
our country. Finally, we were so brazen required the adoption of a 'non-reciprocal 
preference clause' under which Colombia will unilaterally grant to the United States "any 
additional preference to those provided in the FTA with any country that agrees with the 
agreements that lock business since February 2006. "

Massive imports of agricultural products arrive in Colombia as a result of the above 
represent a serious threat to the livelihood of rural production in the country, 
especially those headed by the peasantry, since an important part of the food produced 
"can not compete "with the low prices of those from the north. It is estimated that 
approximately 41% of the peasantry suffer impacts between 40% and 100% in the growing 
area, 28% of them showing a loss of between 48.5% and 70.2% of their income, while the 
remaining 13% will be subject to detriments in income of at least 25%.

This is framed in the context of dispute over control of rural areas encouraged by the 
advance of the 'locomotives' energy mining and agribusiness. Locomotives whose 
consolidation is heir to the organic links between political elites, economic and social 
regional, national business and foreign capital, with the paramilitary unit that works 
across the country. Locomotives in this sense responsible for the forced displacement of 
more than 10% of the Colombian people, the "counter" land to which we have witnessed over 
the past three decades, driven through the violent dispossession of land, and also 
responsible for setting up a humanitarian crisis that is unmatched in the Western Hemisphere.

The predictable failure of much of the Colombian countryside confronts us then to a 
sharpening of the rhythms of rural-urban migration forced the growth of slums in urban 
areas and the rise of the concentration of land in the hands of " entrepreneurs "of 
agrofuels, extraction of natural resources of our soil, and monocultures, all for export. 
So, it is inevitable that increased levels of forced displacement, now for economic 
reasons, as also the growth of coca cultivation likely to attend the peasantry to subsist. 
Ultimately, a deepening of the precarious and disgraceful living conditions of the 
Colombian people, and in this way, a sharpening of the tensions that mediate unequal and 
violently unequal balance of power between actors in the country.

Still earlier, so the current rogue government representatives boast about the supposed 
benefits that the treaty would involve trying to sweeten the ear Colombia with promises 
that are not be more than trinkets own from a seller of illusions. Thus, Santos said 
"These agreements should be seen as a threat rather than an opportunity, have the largest 
market for the free world is to take advantage of our exporters, particularly small and 
medium industry and for those who have never exported because now I can do. (...) When one 
takes stock of winners and losers are the winners and in spades. For the losers are going 
to help and is a great opportunity to generate employment. Economists say economic growth 
increases from 0.5 to 1% and generating 100,000 jobs a year of good quality. " He has 
dared even the Minister of Foreign Trade to promise the creation of between 200 thousand 
and 500 thousand new jobs over the next five years, when the United States, one of the 
largest economies in the world multiplied by more than two digits Colombian GDP - only 
7000 new jobs forecast based on exports of $ 1,100 million annually to Colombia, while the 
latter in the best case scenario will export $ 487 million a year.

It has been argued with much fanfare that the treaty failed to get to Colombia zero 
tariffs in the U.S. market for certain products, what we have wanted to tell you is that 
these benefits existed and were implemented several years ago under the ATPDEA as a result 
policy support 'alternative development' in the context of the war on drugs imposed by the 
United States. Even the FTA reverse some conditions favorable to Colombia while the treaty 
intensifies the demands of SPS type for Colombian products and in that sense "excludes the 
U.S. market."

Speaking of good expectations, it seems necessary to remind the Colombian government the 
experiences of other Latin American countries that have hampered such agreements with the 
northern power. Under the agreement between Central America and the U.S., while exports 
from Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador grew by 1.4%, U.S. flooded their 
countries of cheap exports increasing 18% to them. The disintegration of the Mexican 
agricultural sector and the massive bankruptcy of small farmers in this country leaves a 
balance of two decades of roughing implemented the free trade agreement between the United 
States, Canada and Mexico, which, despite all expectations and promises generated, 
economic growth has remained well below the Latin American average.

This treaty will force us to encarnizarnos in the way of competition, drive for which the 
past governments have defined specific strategies in the period known as mining 
locomotives Santos, agribusiness and infrastructure; initiatives will necessarily compete 
for territorial control of those activities not configured from the logic of productivity 
and capital accumulation; territory that the FTA was previously responsible for emptying 
through bankruptcy doomed to subsistence economies and livelihoods. But not to worry, they 
say, given that the peasantry may be associated with the business of agriculture to 
cultivate what they supposedly Colombia has competitive advantages (agrofuels), it is not 
nothing but a pawn of the actors become the spoil, in usurped land estates avocadas to 
planting palm and other agro-industrial crops.

The dispute over the control and the vocation of the territory from now threatens the 
sovereignty, security and food self-sufficiency in the country and in this way close the 
closed boundaries of self-determination that still has the Colombian people. What is at 
stake then is not only redefining the country's productive structure, or the population's 
food options, the FTA stands starkly present the dispute over the kind of country and 
society to Colombia, where Popular subjects are unknown and unknown systematically by 
representatives of the establishment through the unilateral imposition of hegemonic 
enterprise disguised in a veil of consensus typical of representative logic provided by 
the pipe dream of liberal democracy.

From: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/23268
Related Link: http://www.cilep.net/perspectiva%20libertaria%20express4.pdf
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en