Over a thousand marchers
poured into Miami on Tuesday, Feb. 18th, for the culmination
of the 3-day, 34-mile "Root Cause" march,
calling for trade policies that respect human rights
and the environment. The march went off without a hitch,
and with overwhelming popular support from the people
of the Miami area along the march route, despite a steady
drumbeat of media coverage and police outreach to local
communities in the weeks leading up to the march focusing
on possible problems with "violence".
But instead of violence,
the press had to make do with reporting on the real
issues at hand in the ongoing negotiations around the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), hearing those
issues, for the first time, from working class people,
people like Francisca Cortez of the CIW (above, speaking
to the press during the march) -- people not allowed
to participate in the secret trade negotiations, but
the very people who suffer the real life consequences
of corporate-led globalization.
Click
here for the Miami Herald's entire week of coverage
of the FTAA meetings and protests
And for background on the Root Cause march,
click on the links below:
* From the Miami Herald: "Migrant
workers: The plight of the poor farmer -- Many of Mexico's
poorest have been forced to leave their homes and are
now working on US farms"(11/10/03)
* Also from the Miami Herald: "FTAA
Summit: Marches, 'trial' on agenda"
* From The Guardian of London, read Naomi Klein's
"Miami
or Bust," , about the inequities of
corporate-led globalization and the FTAA summit in Miami
(contains a quote from Lucas Benitez of the
CIW on the impact of free trade on Mexican
small farmers).
* And finally,
"Shafted: Free Trade and America's Working Poor,"
a new publication by Food First Institute for
Food and Development Policy. It features testimony
to the US Congress from June of this year by workers
and labor organizers on the true cost of free trade
policy for millions of people who work for a living,
from factory workers here in the US to small farmers
in Mexico. Lucas Benitez of the CIW
is featured in the book, which you can pick up by going
to the Food
First website and putting
your order in, or simply email us at workers@ciw-online.org
and we'll hook you up.
Or... just click here
to read
Lucas Benitez' testimony to Congres
(from TomPaine.com
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