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Proposed resolution:

We stand in solidarity with the struggle of the Costa Rican people against the ratification of CAFTA/DR and we call on all social and popular organizations of the hemisphere to mobilize so that the constitutional court of justice in Costa Rica declares the unconstitutionality of CAFTA DR and prepare ourselves to defeat it in the October 2007 referendum.

Proposed Declaration about CAFTA Assembly of Popular Movements

Because to defeat the neoliberal policies in the world in this moment that we need to defeat the Free Trade Agreements that:

• Deepen and intensify these neoliberal policies, impoverishing the majority of the population;
• Substitute the human rights of all with the so-called “commercial rights” of the corporations;
• Substitute the national constitutions with the laws of the corporate dollarzed market
• Convert the natural environment into marketable, patentable, and commercial objects, and privatize goods and services.

Because the current resistance of the social and political movements against CAFTA in Costa Rica – the only country in the region that has not ratified the Treaty – is evidence that it is possible to stop the anti-democratic “adoption” of these treaties, and who have resisted to the extent of obliging the State to organize a Referendum in October of this year where every day the “NO” momentum builds and the regional and international solidarity multiplies.

Because on the 11th of July – give or take 2 weeks – the Constitutional Court of this country will announce a decision about whether or not CAFTA is unconstitutional, which will have great implications for the struggle to defeat free trade agreements elsewhere.

This Assembly of Popular Movements is committed to accompany the people of Costa Rica and the region in this struggle against CAFTA in the next few months by doing the following:

• To distribute information to all media within our reach about what is happening in Costa Rica and the Central American region.
• To declare this week our support in the struggle of resistance of all sectors of the “NO!” to CAFTA movement by sending letters, “fact finding” missions and solidarity to Costa Rica, signing the “Banner of Dreams” that has been brought to this Assembly by the Women Against CAFTA, and communicating with our congressional representatives about our opposition to the policies of CAFTA.
• To develop a long-term campaign against CAFTA, monitoring its impact including the differential impacts related to gender, ethnicity, age, sexual diversity and nationality that exist in the country, making known the active resistance by the majority of the population in these countries.

Maria Suárez Toro, NO to CAFTA Movement, Women Against CAFTA, Costa Rica;
Jorge Arguedas, Internal Workers Front of ICE
Aparicio Pérez, National Coordinator of Campesinas, Guatemala

Network of Civil Action Against Trade and Investment, SINTI TECHAN, El Salvador
Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART) – USA
Mexican Action Network Against Free Trade - Mexico
Common Frontiers - Canada
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) - USA

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