[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
================================================
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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