[E-rundbrief] Info 1727 - Via Campesina Day of Peasant´s Struggle 2018

Matthias Reichl info at begegnungszentrum.at
Mo Apr 23 17:47:27 CEST 2018


E-Rundbrief - Info 1727 - La Via Campesina International: We demand 
that the Peasants rights are guaranteed. Enough of FTAs, enough 
impunity for Corporations! International Day of Peasant´s Struggle.

Bad Ischl, 23.4.2018

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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This April 17th we demand that the Peasants rights are guaranteed. 
Enough of FTAs, enough impunity for Corporations!

La Via Campesina International

  17 APRIL 2018  FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS

(Harare, April 17th 2018) After two decades of Free Trade Agreements 
(FTAs), being advanced in an attempt to recolonize and 22 years after 
the de Eldorado dos Carajás massacre in Brazil, La Via Campesina 
denounces the impunity with which these actions are carried out. The 
global peasant movement issues a call to resist, in an organized way, 
these treaties that try to take over of our natural resources and 
local markets, for the benefit of the transnational capital and 
agribusinesses, with the States playing a mute spectator or an accomplice.

This 17th April, on the occasion of the International Day of Peasant´s 
Struggle, the member organisations and allies of La Via Campesina are 
organizing scores of unified and decentralized actions in a global 
scale, for the right to land and water, against the Free Trade 
Agreement and against the criminalization of the social struggle 
saying: Enough FTA, enough impunity!

The FTAs are more than just commerce. These are agreements that 
enforce structural reforms, which in turn strengthen the transnational 
corporations (International legally binding instrument on 
transnational corporations (TNCs), the economic interests of the 
national elites and the governments. Free Trade Agreements have the 
global objective to commercialise water, land, seeds and taking over 
life itself.  Bilateral and Regional free trade agreements that are 
done between two or more governments, even though may remain outside 
the World Trade Organisation, and are also tools to advance the 
neo-liberal agenda.

Just as the mistrust of FTAs are growing, so are the acts of 
resistances and mobilisations. Today, and in the coming weeks, our 
organizations all around the world are organising several actions to 
denounce the adverse impact FTAs have had on peasant families and food 
sovereignty.

The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) is mobilising in the 
region and demanding from the European Union to free the peasants from 
Free Trade Agreements!

Protesting the MERCOSUR, CETA, JEFTA free trade agreements, ECVC 
states "these treaties are a fatal blow to us, small and medium 
farmers already in a situation of crisis. These agreements facilitates 
dumping and the expansion of agroindustry at the expense of peasant 
communities".

CLOC, the Latin American Coordination of Via Campesina calls upon the 
people to resist the impunity of Corporations that carry out human 
rights violations. It insists on building new alternatives in the 
territories and demand the implementation of popular agrarian reform 
that guarantees food sovereignty to the people.

The International Coordination Committee (ICC) of La Via Campesina is 
also meeting in South Korea in the week, starting April 17. To 
commemorate the struggle against FTAs, the ICC will also take part in 
the International Forum on Free Trade and Agriculture in Seoul on 
April 19.

"Even though World Trade Organisation (WTO) has failed in their 
multi-lateral agreements, it still functions as the world's police 
enforcing the neoliberal Free Trade Agreements. And with the FTAs the 
corporations and States are carrying out an assault against the 
peasantry. Institutions such as the WTO, World Bank, International 
Monetary Fund never work for the peasants and for this reason, as 
peasants, we think that they should just disappear" says Kim Jeong 
Yeol from the Korean Women Peasant Association and an ICC member.

La Via Campesina this day also denounces the systematic violations of 
the peasants fundamental rights that could be alarming, in countries 
like Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras, Colombia among others thousands of 
peasants are murdered with total impunity. In Indonesia, Thailand, 
India, Sri Lanka, The Philippines and Pakistan, thousands of peasants 
are murdered with total impunity and many violations of peasants' 
rights also occur. These incidents tend to aggravate because of the 
FTAs that are exclusively to the service of the corporations and the 
capital. This is why in this context we demand a "UN Declaration 
recognising the Rights of Peasants and Other People working in Rural 
Areas".

Free Trade Agreements promote land and water grabbing, destroy local 
markets and put food sovereignty at risk all together. And the effects 
are far wider and promote the privatisation of public services as well 
– like health services, medicine, telecommunications, energy, the 
water supply provisions, – among others- opening vast areas to foreign 
investment. In many cases the signatory governments are forced to 
reform their laws, and carry out irreversible compromises. The 
protection of the investments forbids agrarian reform, as Governments 
prioritises investor interests over national democratic decisions. 
Through such agreements, the Corporations strengthen their power to 
influence policies and regulations in these signatory countries.

Mobilize!

This April 17th join the different mobilizations united to struggle 
for a systematic change, defending the land, territories and food 
sovereignty for the people, saying: No to FTAs and global capitalism! 
No FTA benefits the working class, we must eradicate them not reform 
them"!

We feed our people and build movement to change world!

The report of VII Conference is now available:

https://viacampesina.org/en/report-of-the-vii-international-conference-of-la-via-campesina/

http://viacampesina.org/Via-info-en/


-- 

     Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, 4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at


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