[E-rundbrief] Info 898 - Peoples Alternative Summit Madrid 5/2010

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 898 - Call to the Peoples' Alternative Summit, 
Enlazando Alternativas 4 (Europe - Latin America), Madrid, 14th - 18th 
May 2010.

Bad Ischl, 7.3.2010

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Call to the Peoples' Alternative Summit, Enlazando Alternativas 4

Madrid, 14th - 18th May 2010

In May 2010, the Presidents and Heads of State of the European Union 
(EU), Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC) will meet in Madrid under the Spanish Presidency of the 
EU. The “Old Continent”,
restructured today as the Europe of capital and war, will seek, at this 
Summit, to push policies and
mechanisms favoring finance capital and the big transnational 
corporations, the plundering of natural
resources and the privatization of public services disguised as promises 
of development. This Summit
will take place under the shadow of a financial, economic, environmental 
and social crisis that is
causing increasing unemployment and precarity in Europe and poverty and 
social exclusion in Latin
America.

In Europe, social movements and organizations witness a continuing 
advance of the Right, and an
increasingly powerful and aggressive attack on the labour, economic, 
political, social, cultural, and
environmental rights that have been won in the past. The recent approval 
of the Lisbon Treaty — in an
anti-democratic way which denied the direct participation of the people 
— will favor the interests of
transnational corporations through free trade agreements and the 
liberalization of investments, to the
detriment of the rights of the peoples and the environment. This 
Fortress Europe, militarized,
xenophobic and inhumane, with less public services and more 
privatizations is not our Europe. To the
Europe of capital, war and crisis, we counter-pose solidarity among peoples.

In LAC countries the resistances of the social movements continue to 
develop. Alongside some Latin
American governments, they struggle to defend their sovereignty and, 
despite difficulties and
contradictions, undertake new political projects for social change. 
These efforts are attacked by
criminal actions such as the coup d'etat in Honduras, which poses a 
serious threat for the entire
continent. The election of US President Barack Obama has not led to a 
change in US policy in the
region — as demonstrated by the installation of US military bases in 
Colombia. In a similar way, two
hundred years after independence, the EU attacks the processes of 
regional integration, using the
Spanish government and transnational corporations as its flagship. 
Disguised as cooperation and
development aid, the new galleons of the re-conquest seek to consolidate 
their domination of the
region through free trade agreements.

The bi-regional Europe-Latin America and Caribbean network, Enlazando 
Alternativas, is mobilizing
for the fourth time to create a bi-regional political space, as we did 
in Guadalajara, Mexico (2004),
Vienna, Austria (2006) and Lima, Peru (2008). The Peoples' Alternative 
Summit, Enlazando
Alternativas 4, scheduled to take place from 14th to 18th May 2010, aims 
to strengthen emerging
popular resistances and new convergences and solidarities between our 
peoples. Despite the
criminalization of social movements, it will aim to build a bi-regional 
political space for mobilization.

We are calling on all the social networks and organisations, trades 
unions, political forces and civil
society movements to join the preparation process and participate in 
Madrid in the Peoples' Alternative
Summit, Enlazando Alternativas 4 in defense of peoples' sovereignty, 
human rights, participatory
democracy, labour rights, the rights of women and indigenous peoples, 
social justice, the defense of
the environment in the face of climate change, and the establishment of 
peace.

We have shown that we are not invisible. Gandhi once said: “First they 
ignore us, then they mock us,
then they fight us, then we win”.
Now they are fighting us.

http://www.enlazandoalternativas.org/spip.php?article534

-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
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