Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 2 2005 (IPS) — As this week’s fourth Summit of the Americas looms, the divergence of the governments’ positions on the issue of free trade is jeopardising the hoped-for consensus.

“On the issue of free trade in the hemisphere, we have not yet achieved a common language,” admitted Argentine deputy minister for foreign relations, Jorge Taiana, who is coordinating the summit that will take place on Friday and Saturday in Mar del Plata, a coastal resort 400 km south-east of Buenos Aires.

In Argentina, as in other countries in the region, the government’s position makes it appear unlikely that there will be any progress on trade liberalisation at the summit, whose theme is “creating jobs to fight poverty and strengthen democratic governance”.

“We are not prejudiced against trade, but at every round of negotiations we evaluate the pros and cons. If what we stand to gain does not satisfy us, then we do not forge ahead,” Taiana explained.

The Americas-wide process towards trade integration began at the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, where the United States proposed the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The initiative met with resistance in much of the region, arising from social movements and leftwing and progressive parties. Several of these parties have since been elected to the government in their respective countries.

Despite the disappointing progress of the negotiations, the summits have continued to be held, with shifting agendas. “Placing the issue of decent employment at the centre of this debate is a landmark,” emphasised Taiana, recalling that in the 1990s, labour problems were ignored and disappeared from the agenda.

Now, at the initiative of the host country, the issue is once again on the table. President Néstor Kirchner’s centre-left government argues that during the 1990s, economic growth, trade liberalisation and privatisations in Argentina did not result in job creation and poverty reduction, but rather the reverse, which means a “new paradigm” is needed.

This about-face has been spurred in part by the failure of the economic model, which collapsed in Argentina in late 2001, taking down with it the government of Fernando de la Rúa in the middle of his four-year mandate.

The determined action of civil society has also made a decisive contribution to this change of heart. Social organisations have participated in the summit process, presenting proposals at a forum convened by the Organisation of American States (OAS).

On this occasion, the OAS forum will bring together at Mar del Plata some 400 delegates from a number of organisations and the foreign ministers of the Americas on Thursday. Women’s organisations, environmentalists, representatives of small business, and groups of indigenous people, migrants and African descendants will be taking part.

However, the main political impact by civil society will be made at a parallel assembly of social and political organisations opposed to the FTAA – the third Peoples’ Summit -running Tuesday through Saturday in Mar del Plata.

Taking up the theme “Another Americas is possible”, the so-called “counter-summit” will draw thousands of activists from throughout the Americas to propose alternatives to the kind of integration that would flow from free trade. It will end with a street march on Friday to protest the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Gustavo Gamallo of the Inter-American Network for Democracy will be taking part in the OAS forum, but said he would probably also join the march through the streets of Mar del Plata, right up to the security corridor cordoned off for the summit meeting of heads of State and governments of 34 countries of the Americas (all of them, with the exception of Cuba).

Speaking to IPS, Gamallo admitted that some participants at the forum are critical as to the effectiveness of the mechanisms of participation proposed by the OAS. However, he felt that this opportunity for dialogue between civil society and governments is essential if they are to be able to influence the direction of the discussions.

In the activist’s view, the Peoples’ Summit is “complementary” to the forum, and will contribute by informing the context of the issues being debated at the meeting of the heads of State.

In contrast, the counter-summit organisers’ attitude to participating in the summit process itself is to reject it out of hand. They believe that taking part will only legitimise policies which are not always in the best interests of the majority of the population.

“We are in favour of the job creation theme, but it is one thing for a government to proclaim a slogan, and quite another thing to have the real power to bring about change,” Juan González, the organising secretary of the Peoples’ Summit, told IPS.

“To bring about real change, you have to mobilise society outside the Summit,” added González, a leading member of the Union of Argentine Workers (Central de Trabajadores Argentinos), one of the two umbrella organisations for trade unions in Argentina.

González rejects Washington’s prescriptions for generating employment and reducing poverty, which recommend freeing up trade throughout the region and creating conditions that will attract private investment. That is why, he says, Bush is the one who must be rejected.

Bush “represents everything that we don’t want: free trade, abdication of sovereignty and militarisation,” the trade union leader itemised.

In fact, the issue of free trade came up in the final stages of the negotiations for this summit, to became a bone of contention. “It is one of the points that give rise to hardcore debate, and it will block a consensus until the very last minute,” predicted the deputy coordinator of the official summit, Leonardo Franco.

The leaders are to sign a declaration and an action plan based on the summit theme. Negotiators from the 34 countries of the hemisphere are working overtime to meet the deadline. On Friday they met for the last time in Buenos Aires, and since Monday they have been meeting in Mar del Plata.

According to Taiana, who believes the governments want to reach an agreement, everyone agreed on the theme for the summit, and accepted that economic growth alone is not enough to ensure the creation of decent jobs, nor are social assistance programmes able to end poverty by and of themselves.

But “nuances” or “different approaches” to the subject showed up in the different practical ways of working towards the goals, said the coordinator.

He disclosed that some countries – which he did not name – argue that the obstacles to creating jobs and fighting poverty are intrinsic to each individual country, whereas others, like Argentina, believe that the problems are not only internal.

“There are international issues that limit the development of the countries in this region, such as the agricultural subsidies (paid to farmers in the industrialised North), which affect our exports, or the conditions imposed by multilateral lending institutions, which can sometimes turn into part of the problem instead of part of the solution,” said the official.

Taiana also explained that, whereas some countries feel it necessary to create favourable conditions for private investment as a means to creating jobs, others emphasise the need to foster local private initiative, using public policies that contribute to development.