The Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)

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AFTA Overview
Last November, the Bush Administration announced an aggressive plan to negotiate another free trade agreement, in what appears to be an endless line of like attempts at opening up markets for corporate expansion in Latin America. The start of negotiations began just as talks for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) hit an impasse at the ministerial meeting in Miami, FL. Thus the Andean Free Trade Agreement or “AFTA” was introduced – like CAFTA – as an attempt to put the FTAA in place piece by piece. Negotiating parties include the United States, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Bolivia, currently participating as an observer, is expected to join the negotiations.

Most alarming about the AFTA is the audacity of the current Administration to negotiate a free trade agreement with Colombia — the country that currently leads the Western hemisphere in reported human rights and international humanitarian law violations (Human Rights Watch, January 2004). The negotiations belie an utter disrespect for labor and human rights. In point of fact, just under 200 unionists were killed last year alone in Colombia, making it the most dangerous country in the world for unionists. As one Colombian worker explains: “For more than twenty years I’ve worked as a trade unionist in a country where union work is like carrying a tombstone on your back.”[1]

The lack of labor rights provisions in the Andean FTA comes as little surprise however, as it is modeled after the US-Central American trade pact (CAFTA) which in addition to including no core, enforceable labor or environmental protections includes services provisions promoting the privatization and deregulation of fundamental public services. There has been strong popular resistance to privatization in the Americas in the past, much of which has ended in harsh repression. In June 2002, for example, two people died and 150 people were injured during six-day protests in Arequipa, Peru against a plan to privatize two electricity companies. Similarly, in Bolivia a water privatization plan by the California-based Bechtel corporation in Cochabama went awry when families received water bills equal to as much as 25 percent of their monthly income.[2] The price hikes sparked massive citywide protests that the Bolivian government sought to end by declaring a state of martial law. More than a hundred people were injured and one 17-year-old boy was killed. In April 2000, as protests continued, the privatization contract was terminated. Bechtel then filed a lawsuit against the people of Bolivia for $25 million in “potential” lost profits.[3]

The CAFTA model replicated in the Andean agreement would also remove all tariff barriers on imported agricultural products allowing cheaply grown and heavily subsidized U.S. corn and other basic grains to flood local markets (subsidies that almost exclusively benefit giant agribusiness in the U.S.). Peru’s Agricultural and Communities Front, which groups together more than a dozen associations of small-scale farmers, opposes plans to reduce import tariffs on agricultural products, arguing that Peru should not offer any reductions until the United States agrees to eliminate agriculture subsidies. “The free trade agreement is going to destroy traditional agriculture in Peru. Millions of farming families are going to be pushed deeper into poverty by tariff-free imports,” said Miguel Palacin.[4]

Notes
1. Giraldo, Hector de J., In My Country, Privatization is Enforced by Assassination, March 2003.
2. EarthJustice, Secretive World Bank Tribunal Bans Public and Media Participation in Bechtel Lawsuit over Access to Water, February 2003.
3. Ibid.
4. Daily Report for Executives, “Farm Tariffs, Intellectual Property Rights Seen as Main Obstacles to U.S.-Andean FTA” July 30, 2004.
What You Need to Know about AFTA Public Citizen
CAFTA & AFTA Talking Points International Relations Center, October 20, 2005
Declaration of Parliamentarians, Congressman, & Legislators of Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, & Bolivia before AFTA September 22, 2005
AFTA: Threats to Development Alliance for Responsible Trade, July 22, 2004