In recent years, the popular struggles
against neo-liberalism and imperialism in the Americas
and in other parts of the World have generated a crisis
of legitimacy for the neo-liberal system and its institutions.
The most recent expressions of this are the defeat
of the FTAA in Mar del Plata and the Agreement for
a European Constitution in France and Holland.
We live in a time in which military intervention
by the United States and European governments and
their allies is the order of the day in order to control
and pillage the riches of the planet, or to abort
the processes of liberation and deny the peoples’
sovereignty to control their own destiny ; at
times with the collusion of the local elite.
During this time in Latin America, we
have seen an explosion of mobilizations against free
trade, militarization, and privatization, and in defense
of natural resources and food sovereignty. In some
countries, these mobilizations have translated into
alternative politics rising to government, emerging
from the groundswell of popular struggles.
The most recent example of this process
is the victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia. Its origin
lies in the struggle against the privatization of
water and the grassroots, peasants, workers, and indigenous
struggles which have been developing in this country
since 2000.
Therefore, in the face of announcements
by transnational corporations such as Repsol (and
others) to withdraw their planned investments as a
means to place conditions on the new government’s
policies, especially in terms of the recuperation
of natural resources, this Assembly calls upon the
workers’ unions of these companies, and the social
movements in the countries where they are located,
to stop this blackmail from happening and to diligently
monitor these companies in order to guarantee the
sovereignty of the people and of the Bolivian government
to freely make their own political choices.
In the face of the access to government
by alternative politics related to popular struggle,
we, social movements, must maintain our political
and programmatic autonomy, driving social mobilization
to achieve our goals and apply pressure to prevent
any adaptation by these governments of the neo-liberal
model.
Finally, the social movements gathered
during this World Social Forum in Caracas, in our
commitment to confront the neo-liberal model, imperialism,
and war, will advance in four central campaigns throughout
the year 2006 :
1. International Day of Mobilization Against
the Occupation of Iraq, March 18
Against the war and occupations :
No more wars, peace is the only solution !
We demand the immediate and unconditional
withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq and an end
to the privatization of energy resources.
We oppose all occupations by foreign troops
and, as such, we call for an end to the Israeli occupation
of Palestine and for the creation of an independent
Palestinian State.
We oppose the threats of occupation of
Syria, Iran, and of Latin America countries through
the Plan Colombia, military bases, and other means,
as well as the use of economic embargos as a weapon
of war, such as the US embargo against Cuba.
We demand the disarmament and elimination
of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
We demand respect for human rights, civil
liberties, and an end to tortures, kidnappings, and
illegal detentions, including secret prisons.
We call upon all to mobilize on March
18, 2006 for a global day of protest against the occupation
of Iraq, as part of the global campaign that will
continue until the foreign troops in Iraq are withdrawn.
We also call for participation in the
conference in Cairo (Egypt) against US hegemony and
the occupation of Iraq, which will be held on March
24-27, 2006.
2. Against the Conclusion of the WTO Doha
Round
After the ministerial meeting of the WTO
in Hong Kong, which in spite of great efforts, popular
movements were unable to stop, the ministerial declaration
of the WTO now opens the way for finalizing free trade
negotiations within the Doha Round.
The agreement on this declaration was
the fruit of European Union and United States intimidation
tactics, as well as the decisive role played by the
governments of Brazil and India in their choice to
obtain a place in the power structure of the WTO.
Despite this, all is not lost. In the
next three months, the WTO has to conduct complex
negotiations and the social movements must carry out
campaigns and common actions that put pressure on
the governments to reverse the outcomes of Hong Kong,
in order to derail the WTO in the next meeting of
the General Council, in May of 2006.
3. Against the G-8 Summit, July 2006,
in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Following on the convening of social movements
and organizations of Russia, we call on the people
of that country, and on all social movements and organizations
that share the principles of peace, democracy, and
social justice, to resist and to support our initiatives
by participating in the People’s Counter Summit, in
opposition to the G8 Summit in Saint Petersburg to
be held in July. Contact : alternativy@tochka.ru
4. Against the World Bank and IMF annual
Summit, September 2006
The Social Movements Assembly adopts the
call from the Peoples of the South Assembly for an
international day of direct action confronting the
headquarters of the IMF and the WB in several countries,
coinciding with the annual meetings of these institutions
in September 2006.
It will be a mobilization day to denounce
the illegitimacy of the financial debt imposed on
the countries of the South, and to defend their repudiation
and non-payment, together with a recognition of the
peoples of the South as creditors of an immense historical,
social, and ecological debt, whose restitution and
reparation we demand.
Beyond these four central campaigns, the
VI World Social Forum in Caracas has been a convening
point for movements to promote several networks and
campaigns, whose resolutions are listed below :
* Against the FTAA The Continental Social
Alliance calls for maintaining a continental alert
against any possible attempt to revive FTAA negotiations
in any of its forms, and to forward the struggle against
bilateral or regional free trade agreements in Central
America, the Andean region, the Caribbean, and the
new generation of agreements promoted by the United
States, as expressed in the North American Security
and Prosperity agreement, which furthers subordinate
integration to the United States, including the area
of “security.”
We also call for the construction of a
bi-continental network for the Latin American-European
Union Summit to be held in Vienna in May 2006, and
especially for action against transnational abuse.
In the face of new Latin American political scenarios,
we also call for the increasing development and concretization
of development and integration alternatives, arising
from the social movements as the new priority in this
period.
And finally, with the necessity to orquestrate
a whole new strategy, plan of action and new forms
of convergence and organizing, the Continental Social
Alliance is convening a large Hemispheric Gathering
of Social Movements in the continent, which will be
held at the end of April in Havana, Cuba.
* For Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
We indigenous peoples and movements seek
to deepen our presence in the WSF framework, maintaining
our identity and our own spaces of action, and we
ratify our rejections of the Free Trade Agreements
in defense of our lands and water, calling for joint
actions to build another world.
We stand in solidarity with all countries
and peoples who struggle for sovereignty, such as
Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, and we call for participation
in the III Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples
which will take place in Guatemala City in October,
2006, and which was called for from the II Continental
Summit in Quito.
* For Food Sovereignty and Holistic Agrarian
Reform Land, water, genetic resources and biodiversity
belong to the people ; we will not allow their
privatization nor their commercialization : we
defend and promote small farmer and peasant agriculture.
We demand the recuperation and protection
of native seeds, and at that same time we categorically
reject the sale and use of seeds produced with Terminator
technology, because it is immoral and is an attack
on the foods of humanity and denies seeds to 1,400
million small farmers and peasants around the world.
We call on the small farmer and peasant
peoples, both organized and non-organized, to globally
rise up against these policies on April 17 - the International
Day of Peasant Struggle - and on October 16 - the
World Food Sovereignty Day - and we extend this call
to all networks and social sectors because this is
a threat to all humanity and the planet. The drive
for holistic agrarian reform and land protection will
be the basis of our daily struggle.
* For the Rights of the Palestinian People
We support the struggle of the Palestinian
people for justice, self-determination, and the return
of refugees, and the creation of an independent and
sovereign state with its capital in Jerusalem.
Inspired by the South African struggle
against Apartheid, we support the Palestinian civil
society campaigns of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions
against the Zionist colonizing efforts driven by the
State of Israel.
We demand :
The end of occupation and colonization
of all Arab lands and the destruction of the wall.
The full enjoyment
of social, political, and economic rights by the Palestinian
people.
The application of the right of
return for Palestinian refugees to their homes and
properties. (Res. 194 of the UN).
We support :
The call by representatives of the
Palestinian civil society for a global day of struggle
on May 15 (the 59th anniversary of the Nakba catastrophe),
and invite all social movements to send civil missions
to Palestine on this day.
The IVth Week of National
and International Action Against the Apartheid Wall
will be held November 9-16th.
* Against the Commercialization and Exploitation
of and Violence Against Women (World March of Women)
We call for a permanent fight against racist, machista,
homophobic violence in all its forms, taking on the
feminist struggle for equality as a common challenge
in the building of our efforts and alternatives to
the politics of commercialization and war. The World
March of Women and the Campaign of Women Say No to
the War will organize on March 8, 2006, days of feminist
action against the tyranny of the market and war.
* For the Right to Sexual Diversity (Di·logo
Sur/Sur LGBT)
We affirm our respect for sexual diversity
and the autonomy of individuals. We respect each person’s
right to freely make decisions about their body and
sexuality. We reject any form of discrimination related
to personal choice and we call for support of the
mobilization on June 28 for the full recognition of
sexual diversity.
* Health is Not for Sale (World Health
Forum)
We highlight the Right to Health as a
central axis of the WSF in Africa in January 2007,
bearing in mind the dramatic health situation in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
We call for mobilization and participation
in the regional and national health-related preparatory
events for the WSF in Africa, culminating in participation
in the II World Social Forum of Health to be held
within the WSF framework in Nairobi.
We support the international mobilization
of April 3-7, 2006, as well as the Humanitarian Camp
to be held in Bogotá, Colombia, April 4-7. On the
7th will be a continental / global day for the Right
to Health.
We will organize an International People’s
Tribunal for the Right to Health, asserting the concept
of genocide arising from the inequalities generated
by neo-liberal policies.
In this year of 2006, we add ourselves
to the Global Campaign for the Right to Health and
to the focus on health promoted by a coalition led
by the Peoples Health Movement -PHM- in conjunction
with the World Social Forum on Health.
* Week in Defense of Public Education
for All, November 2006
Education is an inalienable public right
that must be guaranteed and financed by the State.
Education is not a commodity nor can it be included
in any free trade agreement. We will keep fighting
to keep education as a right of the people.
We confirm that the next World Education
Forum will take place within the framework of the
World Social Forum and we will convene a week of mobilization
in defense of public school for all, in the third
week of November 2006.
* Youth and Student Campaign Against the
Privatization of Education
The V International Student Gathering
calls for mobilization against the inclusion of education
in free trade agreements, the privatization process,
and in defense of free public education. We will mobilize
on November 17, International Students Day, against
the commercialization of education and the war.
* Right to Housing (Frente Continental
de Organizaciones Comunitarias, FCOC)
The organizations that fight for the rights
of the city and urban reform understand that fighting
against the eviction of millions of men, women, and
children ensures the social function of private and
public property, fighting for the universalization
of the right to water and environmental sanitation,
as well as all social rights.
We call for all to join the Zero Eviction
Campaign and to participate in the X Gathering of
the FCOC and the People’s March that will be held
May 4-6 simultaneously in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay,
Mexico, the Dominican Republic, as well as other countries.
* For the Right to Communication
Understanding Communication as a right
and not a commodity, we see the fight for the democratization
of communication as a key component in the fight against
neo-liberalism and imperialism, and for the construction
of a new society. This means that the articulation
and development of our own solidarity involves building
citizenship, promoting policies that guarantee diversity
and pluralism of media and preserve information and
knowledge as public goods, reclaiming their access
and resisting their privatization.
* Campaign Against the Privatization of
Water
We declare water to be a common good and
access to it to be a fundamental and inalienable Human
Right. Water is not a commodity ! Therefore we
reject all forms of its privatization, including those
carried out through public-private associations. We
demand that water be excluded from the market laws
imposed by the WTO, NAFTA, and the rest of the free
trade and investment agreements. We commit ourselves
to creating committees that will fulfill these objectives
through education, organizing, and mobilization (at
local, national, regional, and global levels). We
also commit ourselves to the “citizen days” in March
in Mexico City.
* Triple Border : Gathering of Peoples
in Defense of Life and Natural Resources
We put forth a call for the Gathering
of Peoples in Defense of Life and Natural Resources,
especially for the Guaraní Aquifer. We demand the
withdrawal of US troops from Paraguay and the end
of World Bank and IDB intervention in the country.
We will convene the II Social Forum of
the Triple Border, June 21 - 23, 2006 in Ciudad del
Este, Paraguay.
* Campaign Against Climactic Change, November
11, 2006
We recognize the threat of “global warming,”
climactic change, for all humanity. We must put pressure
on businesses and government to reduce CO2 emissions.
We call for global mobilizations next
November 11, 2006, the date in which the United Nations
will hold discussions on the climate.
* Energy is Not a Commodity
Energy resources cannot be treated as
commodities, but rather as strategic goods that belong
to the people and not to transnational companies.
We will work to have our countries regulate frameworks
that guarantee access to energy for future generations.
We reaffirm the deliberations from the
I Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Energy Workers
(Caracas, March 2005) and we support the convening
of its IInd edition in Mexico City. These proposals
should orient the actions of the social movement in
energy issues during the upcoming period.
* Energy and IIRSA
In terms of the integrations of energy
and physical infrastructures, the model can not be
based on purely economic logic that only looks at
profits and ignores indigenous communities, peasant
farmers and their families, and quilombos, among others.
For us, the model has to be based on a social logic
of inclusion, with respect for diversity, the environment,
and workers’ rights.
IIRSA - Initiative for the Integration
of Regional Infrastructure in South America - will
have to attend to the interests of the people and
not generate more inequality. We denounce this initiative
for being conducted with a lack of transparency and
dialogue with the parliamentarians and civil societies
of the countries involved. The current IIRSA proposal
creates an infrastructural integration that perpetuates
the role of our countries as exporters of non-valued-add
raw materials and products, aggravating the problem
of natural resources year after year.
>From the point of view of alternative
energies, the processes have to be both renewable
and sustainable, and also not reinforce the logic
of agribusiness, monoculture, and latifundio estates.
* Campaign for the Demilitarization of
the Americas (CADA) The Campaign for the Demilitarization
of the Americas demands the withdrawal of North American
troops from Paraguay and the withdrawal of foreign
troops from Haiti.
* Campaign Against North American Military
Bases
We condemn the action of the CIA, the
M16, and the European secret police who carry out
illegal detentions, kidnap civilians and carry them
in secret flights to US military bases in Europe that
are the “European Guantánamos” of today.
We express our solidarity with the 28
Pakistanis who were illegally detained and kidnapped
in Greece. We will not sacrifice our civil liberties
in the name of the “war on terror” of Bush, Blair,
and their allies.
[We are preparing an international gathering
of the movements that make up the campaign, to be
held in Ecuador in March.]
* For the Freedom of the Five Cuban Prisoners
Held in the United States
The United States government, with its
double-standard morals in the fight against terrorism,
refuses to extradite or try in its territory Luís
Pozada Carriles (responsible for the explosion of
a Cuban civilian plane that cost the lives of 73 passengers),
while at the same time, it continues to hold five
courageous Cuban fighters against terrorism. We demand
their immediate release as well as the trial of Pozada
Carriles.
* Solidarity Days with Haiti, February
15 and 29
We demand the withdrawal of foreign troops
from Haiti and the annulment and reparation of the
financial debt that the international financial institutions
and other supposed creditors hold against the people.
We call for carrying out actions on February 15 for
troop withdrawal and the annulment of Haiti’s debt.
At the same time, we call for March 29 (Haitian Constitution
Day) to be a World Day of Solidarity with Haiti.
* Campaign for Self-Determination for
the Last Colonies on the American Continent
We strongly condemn the presence on the
continent of French, US, Dutch, and British colonies,
and we denounce the pretense of the French colonial
power in presenting this colonization as a positive
act.
We declare our solidarity with the struggle
for self-determination of the peoples of Puerto Rico,
Martinique, Guadalupe, French Guyana, Surinam, and
Saint Maartin.
We insist that these countries be included
in the UN list of countries yet to be decolonized.
* Campaign Stop Coca-Cola Assassin
The Assembly of Social Movements adopts
the campaign “Stop Coca-Cola Assassin” being carried
out by the US Students Against Sweatshops in defense
of workers’ rights and of people who have been victims
of violence imposed by this transnational.
* European Union /Latin America and Caribbean
Counter - Summit, Vienna (Austria), May 2006
Marking the fourth presidential summit
between the EU and Latin America / the Caribbean,
social movement networks and NGOs of both continents
will organize a large parallel event in Vienna (Austria),
May 10-13, under the name Linking Alternatives 2.
The event will include the People’s Tribunal Against
European Transnationals, bi-regional forums on alternatives
to neo-liberalism and militarization, meetings and
public demonstrations, etc.
(This summit will organize a mobilization
from the European Social Forum in the preceding days,
which will take place in Athens, Greece, on May 7,
2006)
* Statement of the WSF on Childhood (WSFC)
held in Caracas January 24-29, 2006.
In the framework of the WSF on Childhood,
held January 24-29, 2006 in Caracas in the Andrés
Bello school, the children, adolescent, and adult
participants declare :
1. That another world is only possible
with the pro-active participation of children and
adolescents and the full, direct implementation of
all their rights.
2. We suggest to all organizers of the
Forum that they consider having Childhood be a crosscutting
axis for the next Forum, and that they guarantee spaces
for the direct participation of children and adolescents
in that axis.
3. We request that the WSF Hemispheric
Council include organizations made up of children
and adolescents.
4. That the agreements, proposals, and
conclusions coming out of the various tables of the
WSF on Childhood be promoted and disseminated through
the various mechanisms available through the WSF,
with the aim of inviting the organizations, children,
adolescents, and adult participants of this forum
to share and discuss the suggestions and proposals
coming out of the Forum.
5. We commit ourselves to building a network
to promote the implementation and follow-up of the
agreements, conclusions, and recommendations from
the FSMI tables, and principally the pro-active participation
of children and adolescents in future world social
forums.
www.alternatives.ca/article2395.html
