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HSA Bulletin June 23, 2008

HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE
ALIANZA SOCIAL CONTINENTAL
http://www.asc-hsa.org

1. Europe Raises Its Wall: Parliament Approved Anti-Immigrant Law
2. CAOI (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - Coordination of Andean Indigenous Organizations): No to the "Flexibilization" of Decision 486 of the CAN (Andean Community)
3. The FTA with Canada: another betrayal of the Nation
4. Chile: 10,000 demonstrators and nearly 300 arrests in protest against the Education Law
5. The plundering of minerals in Argentina: The Best Business in the World
6. The oil "bubble" and global social protests
7. Via Campesina calls for a mobilization against the G8 meeting in Hokkaido Japan

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1) Europe Raises Its Wall: Parliament Approved Anti-Immigrant Law

The European Parliament easily approved with a disconcerting majority the shameful "Return Directive" criminalizing and repressing "illegal" immigrants.

Thanks to an alliance of conservatives, liberals, and above all the socialist group led by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party), it approved without amendments a directive that embodies the repressive vision of the extreme European right on immigrant policy. It will affect all undocumented immigrants in every country of the European Union, in that it permits the deprival of their freedom for up to 18 months without judicial process pending their expulsion. In addition it expands to five years the prohibition on returning to Europe and allows the expulsion of minor children without family. Read the entire article in Spanish

2) CAOI (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - Coordination of Andean Indigenous Organizations): No to the "Flexibilization" of Decision 486 of the CAN (Andean Community)

The Andean Council of Ministers, meeting in Lima on 17 June, decided to postpone the debate over the Peruvian proposal to amend Decision 486 of the Andean Community, thanks to the firm position of the Bolivian government rejecting the change. The Indigenous Consultative Council of the CAN and the indigenous organizations of the region remain vigilant on this theme.

The pronouncement of CAOI on this subject:

    The Peruvian government has presented CAN with a proposal to amend Decision 486 and adapt it to the demands of the Free Trade Agreement it signed with the USA. This initiative reaffirms its subservience to neoliberal globalization, and would entail the eradication of the rights of indigenous peoples and criminalize its just protests. Its likely goal is to destroy the Andean Community, which represents an obstacle to the negotiation of new Free Trade Agreements, due to the presence in the region of governments that defend their national sovereignty.

    By this procedure the Peruvian government has reversed the proper order: first it signed the FTA with the USA, and only then it asked to change CAN's Decision 486, instead of insisting that the FTA conform to Andean norms and first consulting the Peruvian citizenry.

    The proposal to amend Decision 486 is not only unilateral and servile to the interests of the USA and the transnationals -- it constitutes a grave menace to the collective knowledge of our peoples by making it easier for transnationals to patent that knowledge…Besides it restricts access of the most excluded indigenous peoples to medications and medical technologies.

This declaration was signed on 17 June by the representatives of indigenous groups of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. Read the entire article in Spanish

3) The Colombia FTA with Canada: another betrayal of the Nation

The Colombian government has concluded negotiations for an FTA with Canada, after five rounds that began in July 2007. Although the terms of the treaty have not been divulged, we know that Peru signed a treaty basically the same as that signed with the USA. The signing of this treaty shows that once numerous concessions are made to the USA, the new FTA means a simple extension to Canada. So the FTA with Canada is meant to guarantee the exploitation of our natural resources, and to entrench neoliberal policies that confine Colombia to an unjust division of labor, dependent on the exportation of basic products and the deterioration of the labor, environmental and social standards of the Colombian people. Read the entire article in Spanish

4) Chile: 10,000 demonstrators and nearly 300 arrests in protest against the Education Law

This Wednesday the Chilean police broke up a peaceful march of student demonstrators in Santiago protesting against the educational law being debated in Congress, resulting in 292 arrests. Ten thousand teachers also joined the protest, rejecting a legal initiative that would increase inequality, segregation and private profit in education. They demanded the strengthening of public education. The current student protests, like those of last year, strongly express a new popular consciousness about problems in Chile, and are symptoms of a deep unease in broad sectors of Chilean society with the neoliberal model that is showing clear signs of exhaustion. Read the entire article in Spanish

5) The plundering of minerals in Argentina: The Best Business in the World

For nearly three months in Argentina they have been talking only about the conflict generated between rural producers and the federal government rooted in the application of the 11 March of the system of movable restrictions on the export of cereals and oilseeds. The explanation of the Rose House is that this measure is succeeding in effecting a progressive redistribution of wealth and has disengaged the internal market from world prices. But this principle has not been applied to another sector that is enjoying a better moment than the rural, namely the foreign companies that extract minerals (all are subsidiaries of MNCs). Read the entire article in Spanish

6) The oil "bubble" and global social protests

The extremely high price levels that have been reached by petroleum and its derivatives has led in the first place to a rise in food prices and a general rate of inflation. The balance for the peoples of the world, even those in petroleum exporting countries, is negative. They are paying for a crisis in the raise in the cost of basic necessities that take most of their already shrunken budgets. And what of the countries that are net importers? Social protest is to be expected. In both selling and buying countries, transport sectors have gone on strike. Read the entire article in Spanish

7) Via Campesina calls for a mobilization against the G8 meeting in Hokkaido Japan

Representatives of the eight richest countries in the world will meet on 7-9 July in Hokkaido, Japan. These governments have imposed policies that are the original cause of the crisis of food and agriculture. This world crisis began to surge in the 70s and left 852 million people in extreme poverty, the majority of them living in rural areas. The recent crisis of food prices has brought the crisis to the cities, where people cannot buy enough food. The crisis of climate change that began with the abuse of fossil fuels in industrialized countries and massive deforestation by the TNCs, will especially affect the poor countries of the South. Read the entire article in Spanish

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