Political Declaration of the III Mesoamerican Forum

The Mesoamerican Movement for Popular Integration Against the Puebla-Panama Plan

Between the 16th and 18th of July in the city of Managua, Nicaragua, more than 1000 delegates from over 350 organizations in Mesoamerica and other friendly nations met and analyzed the effects of the megaplans of the PPP, FTAA, and other free-trade agreements, as well as the more visible results of neoliberal, corporate globalization and the structural adjustment imposed by international financial bodies led by the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

We identified as the primary problem that popular organizations run into in their proposals and in the formulation of their alternatives is the domination of the capitalist system as a political, economic, social and cultural system. As such, we totally reject it, as well as the payment of the external debt.

We furthermore note the increase in the militarization of all of Latin America by the government of the North Americans. We especially want to emphasize the effort to plant military bases and police academies in Mesoamerica. We feel the need to denounce and demand an end to this, and the immediate departure of these armies from our lands.

The different round tables concluded with a total rejection of the Puebla-Panama Plan, the FTAA, and free-trade zones, since we can establish that they have nothing to do with sustainable development of our peoples. They compromise biodiversity, deepen poverty, and generate greater debt. At the same time, they constitute an expression of the interests of the US government, which is trying to build a free-trade zone in its service and that of transnational businesses, to the detriment of our most fundamental rights. As a consequence, we state that the nature of the PPP is not negotiable at all, and support non-participation in the consulting process promoted by organizations involved in its formation and application.

In addition, during the debate carried out the 16th-18th of July, the Forum heard the resolutions from campesino and maquiladora leaders from the Mesoamerican region, and adopt them as an integral part of the agreements of this Third Encounter.

Among the political agreements, these stood out:

Food security is, for our peoples, an urgent need, and is in an intense struggle to stop the avalanche of trangenic seeds and safeguard the biological wealth of the Mesoamerican Corridor. The fight for food sovereignty represents the defense of our people from those intent on turning us into countries that import food produced in subsidized economies. It is the struggle for an economic model that does not depend primarily on export crops, but rather develops economies where the campesinos are the principle actors and beneficiaries.

Local, popular development, the strengthening of regional and municipal autonomy, and the rights of indigenous peoples to their territorial lands were other central themes of the event, since for the attenders, the construction of local, popular power is a need for the democratic strengthening of our nations.

We, the Mesoamerican peoples, have suffered the consequences of the neoliberal economic model, which in practice have cut off our right to produce, given the decapitalization the campesino economy finds itself in. They have denied us the possibility of having a job, and when one does appear, it lacks fundamental rights, especially in the case of women, who are exploited by the maquilas with no regard for their human rights. The education, health, and culture we are permitted are limited to the development of elemental abilities, to be functional for the system. Information is restricted so that we do not know our rights, and become passive consumers and users. We place special emphasis on the violation of the most fundamental rights suffered by migrants, young people, women, children, and the elderly.

Together with spreading the word about the negative impacts of the PPP, we want to make known the experiences of struggle and of work to build an alternative economic model based on the popular economy and on the experience of sectors such as campesinos, indigenous and Garifuna peoples, workers, and associative businesses [cooperatives].

In the Forum, support was expressed in different ways for the organized resistance the people are showing to stop the privatization of basic services contemplated in the megaplans and the the free-trade agree agreements. The workers of Costa Rica deserve special mention, for their memorable protests which were able to stop the law privatizing the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity. Likewise, we recognize the uprising in San Salvador de Atenco to stop an airport on ancestral lands, and the occupation of 50 farms in Guatemala for the sacred right to land. In the same way, the Forum expressed it support for the Zapatista resistance and its legitimate demand for autonomy, and condemned the US blockade against the Cuban people.

We call for mobilizations and struggle the 12th of October as a demonstration of our rejection of the PPP and the FTAA, to coincide with different expressions of struggle on the day of Mesoamerican resistance.

With all this in mind, we reaffirm our categorical opposition to the PPP and express that our aspiration is the contruction of a social and popular economy, without policies imposed by financial bodies that subordinate our peoples and turn us into slaves to free trade.

We reiterate our readiness to resist using all forms of social mobilization within our reach, always carrying in front our flags of dignity and national sovereignty in a framework of integration in solidarity that has our peoples as its principle protagonist.

"Against the Puebla-Panam Plan, for the Popular Integration of our Mesoamerican Peoples!"

Managua, 18 July, 2002

PPP info. links

English:
Labor Notes PPP Article

National Radio Project

Bank Information Center PPP page

Political Declaration of the III Mesoamerican Forum

Spanish:
PPP Analysis from Coordinadora de los Altos de Chiapas

Declaration of Tapachula

Analysis of PPP from RMALC (Mexican Free Trade Network)

Declaration of Civil Society from Managua Forum on PPP