Final Declaration of the III Summit of the People of the AmericasFinal Declaration (English version)
The FTAA should be buried forever!
No to "free trade" militarization and debt!
To truly end poverty unemployment and social exclusion
AN INTEGRATION FOR AND FROM THE PEOPLE IS NECESSARY AND POSSIBLE
Final Declaration of the III Summit of the People of the Americas
Delegates of social organizations from all regions of the continent, from Canada to Patagonia; workers, farmers, indigenous, young and old, of all races, women and men with dignity have come together in Mar del Plata, Argentina, to demand that the powerful, who normally ignore us, listen to the voice of all of the people of our America. Like previously, in Santiago de Chile and in Quebec, we have come together in the face of the Summit of the Americas, which brings together the presidents of the whole continent, with the exception of Chile, because in spite of the fact that the official discourse continues to be full of words about democracy and the fight against poverty, the people continue to be not taken into account at the hour that the decisions are made about our futures. We find ourselves here in the III Summit of the People, to express our profound resistance to the neoliberal calamities orquestrated by the imperial power from the north while at the same time constructing alternatives. We continue to demonstrate that it is possible to change the course of history and we promise to continue down this road. In the year 2001, in the official Summit in Quebec, when the vast majority of the governments were blindly inclined towards neo-liberal orthodoxy and to the dictates of Washington, with the honorable exception of Venezuela, the US managed to establish January of 2005 as the end date for their new project of domination called Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) to enter into effect, and that during the 4th Summit which was programmed to happen in Argentina would be the event at which the negotiations for this perverse project would be signed. But on the first of January in 2005 we woke up without FTAA and this offical Summit has arrived with the negotiations irreversibly stalled. We are here today to celebrate this! Without a doubt, the US has not changed their strategy to affirm their hegenomus control of the hemisphere, now using bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements such as CAFTA, which was ratified by a very close margin and AFTA which they are now looking to force on the Andean countries.
Additionally, Washington is moving forward with an “Agreement for Security and Prosperity in North America (ASPNA). They are doing this in spite of a multitude of incontestable evidence of more than 10 years of NAFTA, and now this FTA plus has the objective of imposing the element of ‘security’ of the US on the whole region. But the US is not content to advance the pieces of chess in their project of domination on the continent. They insist on accomodating us in their hegenomic framework while at the same time not renouncing their FTAA project. Now, together with their inconditional governments they come to Mar del Plata with the intention of breathing new life into the cadaver FTAA, when the people have clearly expressed their rejection to an integration subordinated to the US. At the same time, their strategy in favor of the North American corporations has been accompanied by an increased militarization of the continent, with US military bases. And now to finish the genocide, George W. Bush has come to the Summit in Mar del Plata with intentions to promote his policies of "security" to the continent under the pretext of combatting terrorism, when the best way to reverse that is to end his policies of colonial intervention. In the final declaration which is being discussed by our governments, the possibility exists that the real threat could come to pass, even though they try to hide what their real intentions are. This declaration is full of empty words and demogogic proposals to combat poverty and generate decent employment. The reality is that these offers only perpetuate a model which has brought more misery and injustice to our continent, which has the worst distribution of riches in the world. This is a model that favors a select few, which promotes a deterioration in labor conditions, promotes migration, contributes to a deterioration of the environment, privatization of social security and education, the implementation of laws which protect the corporations an not our citizens, as is the case with the intellectual property chapters. In addition to the FTAA, they insist on moving forward with the Doha agenda, which is designed to give more power to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in order to impose non-equitable economic rules on the least developed countries to further promote the corporate agenda. They continue to promote the plunder of our natural goods, our energy resources; the appropriation and privatization of our water aquifers and hydrographic reserves, converting access to water from a human right into merchandise controlled by transnational interests. In order to impose these policies, the empire and its accomplices, use the blackmail of external debt which impedes the development of our people in violation of all of our human rights. The declaration of the presidents offers no concrete solutions, such as the cancellation of payments on this illegitimate debt, the restitution of the extra which has been charged and the repayment of the historical social and ecological debts to the people of our America. The delegates of the different peoples of America are here not only to denounce, we are here because we have been resisting the policies of the empire and its allies. But at the same time, we are in the process of constructing popular alternatives, through the solidarity and unity of our people, constructing a social fabric from below, from a place of autonomy and diversity of our movements with the purpose of attaining a society which is inclusive, just and has dignity.
From this III Summit of the People of America we declare:
1) The negotiations for the creation of a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) should be SUSPENDED IMMEDIATELY AND DEFINITELY, as well as all bilateral and regional FTAs. We join with the resistance of the people of the Andean Region and of Costa Rica against those FTAs and with the people of the Caribbean so that the EPAS will not come to signify a new era of disguised colonialism and that the struggles of the people of North America, Chile and Central America to turn back treaties of this type which weigh so heavy on them.
2) All agreements between countries should be based on principals of respect of human rights, the social dimension, respect of sovereignty, a complementary relationship, cooperation, solidarity, considering the economic asymmetries, favoring the least developed.
3) We prefer to promote alternative projects of regional integration, such as the Bolivian Alternatives for the Americas (ALBA).
4)We join our forces with the conclusions and actions which have been born in the forums, workshops and encounters of this Summit and we commit to continue going deeper with our process of constructing alternatives.
5) All of the illegitimate un-payable external debt of the South should be cancelled, immediately and without conditions. We take the position of creditors to collect the social, ecological and historical debt with our people.
6)We join with the struggle of our people for an equitable distribution of riches, with dignified work and social justice to eradicate poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion.
7)We commit to promote a diversification of production, the protection of native seeds which are patrimony of humanity, food sovereignty of the people, sustainable agriculture and an integral agrarian reform.
8)We energetically reject the militarization of the continent being promoted by the empire from the North. We denounce the doctrine called "cooperation for hemispheric security" as a mechanism of repression of popular struggles. We reject the presence of US troops on our continent; we want neither bases nor military conclaves. We condemn the state terrorism of the Bush Administration which would attempt to bloody the legitimate rebellions of our people.
9)We condemn the immorality of the government of the United States, that while it talks about struggling against terrorism, it protects the terrorist Posada Carriles and continues to detain the 5 Cuban patriots. We demand their immediate release!
10)We repudiate the presence in our dignified Latin American land of George W. Bush, the principal promoter of war in the world, and heads up the neoliberal creed which even impacts the interests of his own people.
From here we send a message of solidarity to the dignified women and men of the United States, who are ashamed at having a government which has been condemned by all the world, and who resist against wind and tide. After Quebec, we constructed a huge campaign and continental popular consultations against FTAA and have managed to detain it. In the face of the attempt to bring the negotiations back to life, and to add the military objectives of the US, in this III Summit of the Peoples, we assume the commitment to reinforce our resistance, strengthen our unity in diversity and convoke a new and larger continental mobilization to bury the FTAA forever and build at the same time a new alternative America that is just, free and based on solidarity.
Mar del Plata, Argentina, November 4, 2005
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Oh Ken Arkind from Denver, let us cross the threshold.
Oh 
Two of my best friends, Suzy La Follette and Nick Fox.
Jeanne, great benefactor & friend.
Good conversations.
Was I wearing pants in this picture? I can't remember, we had been nightswimming...
A member of Team France, one of my favorite poets from the event in one of my favorite pictures. His cante flamenco pieces, if only I could hear them again.
Performing "Emergency Broadcast System" at our second bout.
"I don't know what that poem was about, but boy were those cool t-shirts!"
Performing our duo "This Spanish."
Ditto.
"This poem should be about my lungs / filled only with the names of men / who have given me entire worlds."
LEFTY EMPOWERMENT POEM!
"A hundred boys fighting to be king of the playground!"
Push it, Meg.
If you had never heard of poetry slam, what the hell would you think we were doing in this picture?!
"Here's the wind-up and the pitch..."
"Raise up your left hands!"
I said raise them!!
Scream it, Aaron baby.
Raise them, bitches! This is our last poem at Nationals!
And we plead with you, audience!
"You gotta reach out and grab this big ugly world by its balls with ya left hand!"
Celebration! Yay France! Yay Berekley! Yay Eugene! Yay us!
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; ?>/content/images/splash/shootoutposter2005.gif "Southwest Shootout 2005, Austin!")
