Activists' RSVP to OAS: We'll join you in Windsor

Teach-ins, rallies planned to protest the Organization of American States' proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
 

From www.tao.ca/~stopftaa

  One of the oldest regional associations in the world, the Organization of American States is finding itself in the same position as the World Trade Organization - on the public hot seat.
  The OAS is meeting in Windsor, Ontario this weekend (June 4 to 6) and Canadians are planning to greet the meeting with the same type of civil action met by the WTO in Seattle last year. Citizens converged on Windsor beginning June 1 to plan shutdown strategies.
  Why? Because the OAS is nurturing along the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement to the entire Western Hemisphere. Canadians are concerned that yet another agreement will further erode human rights, weaken environmental protection policies and exploit the poor.
  Much has changed since the organization began in 1890 as the International Union of American Republics. At that time, the colonial powers were almost exclusively European. Since 1948 when the OAS coined its current name and signed up 21 countries, the organization has evolved into an influential, 35-member entity that includes all countries in North, South and Central America and the Caribbean, except for Cuba, which was suspended in 1962. In 1990, Canada joined as the 33rd member. Part of the reason was trade.
  The effort to unite the economies of the Western Hemisphere into a single trade arrangement was initiated at the Summit of the Americas, held in Miami, in December 1994. The OAS wants to complete negotiations of the FTAA by 2005 with a commitment to achieving substantial progress by 2000. In Windsor, the Foreign Affairs Ministers representing each member country will be setting the agenda for the next Summit of the Americas to be held in Quebec City in April, 2001.
  Holding the Annual General Assembly meeting in Windsor celebrates Canada's 10-year anniversary as an OAS member. Interestingly enough, the decade also mirrors the rise of free trade in the region. The Council of Canadians points out that while "trade and investment have grown dramatically, Statistics Canada has called these ten years 'the worst decade for workers since the depression of the 1930s and child poverty has grown by 60 percent.'"
  To educate the public and to register their dissatisfaction with the OAS, concerned citizens have formed the Windsor OAS Action Network. WOASAN is joined by a number of other organizations, such as the Canadian Labour Congress and International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, in organizing teaching sessions and protests, beginning June 1. Speakers include Noam Chomsky, Maude Barlow and Naomi Klein.

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