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March 3, 2004
Mike Whitney
"Blood Will Have Blood":
143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
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Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
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Wendell
Berry
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CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
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Corrie
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The
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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March
3, 2004
It's About Far More
Than Trade
The
Colombia-US Free Trade Treaty
By EMILIO SARDI
with Reflections by Toni Solo
The arguments against bilateral US free trade-in-your-sovereignty
agreements with other countries that make it into mainstream
anglophone media tend not to come from industrialists or business
people. But in Latin America many people in private enterprise
are alarmed and disturbed at US attempts to impose its imperialist
plans on their countries. A recent article by Colombian industrialist
Emilio Sardi gives the view of one of Colombia's leading businessmen.
It's worth noting.
US--Colombia "free trade" talks
The US trade representative Robert Zoellick
began moves to open talks on a bilateral trade deal with Colombia
in August 2003. Then after the failure of last year's Cancun
world trade summit last year, he had to face resistance from
participant countries at the Free Trade Area of the Americas
meeting in Miami in November. At that time the US announced plans
to start bilateral trade talks with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador,
Bolivia and Panama.1
The US government portrays this as a
natural development of the Andean Trade Preferences Act which
expires in 2006. They plan to have bilateral deals in place by
then so as to greatly enhance US power in the region. As Emilio
Sardi notes in his article, these "free trade" deals
cut at the roots of national sovereignty and self determination.
Moving on after Cancun and Miami
After bagging the five Central American
countries with the CAFTA trade deal, Zoellick now seeks to take
out the rest of Latin America systematically, country by country.
The US trade representative gets his imperial way by behind-closed-doors
arm-twisting and public doublespeak. He can depend on his colleagues
in the State Department and the CIA to intimidate waverers by
destabilising uncooperative potential partners, as they are currently
doing in Venezuela.
In February this year, the State Department's
Bureau of Information added Dominican Republic to the list of
countries on the US shopping list.2 The relevant statement deployed
this fine specimen of Bush administration mendacity from the
latest White House budget, "These agreements combine intellectual
property and investment protections for U.S. companies with commitments
for strong environmental and labor protections by our partners.."
But it is precisely those environmental and labor protections,
among other social protections, that Zoellick's secretly negotiated
trade deals consign to virtual oblivion.
The view from Colombia
Like many well-informed adn thoughtful
business people throughout Latin America, Emilio Sardi sees this
with absolute clarity. His article was published in Colombia's
Portafolio magazine earlier this year in response to an article
by a Colombian government adviser attacking his views.3 Sardi
writes:
"I should stress I am no enemy of
trade agreements. They can be dreadful if badly negotiated or
fine if negotiated well. But I am opposed to the imposition of
a treaty on Colombia that could be extremely damaging, as studies
on the issue by the National Planning office and Fedesarrollo
have shown. And I am opposed to signing the treaty in a hurry
to a timetable imposed by a few government trade officials without
debate and without the due intervention of public bodies.
Not long ago I wrote, "Colombia
has named a small team made up of people with academic qualifications
but with no experience of serious negotiation. Although the lead
negotiator is capable, this team bears no comparison with the
North American team. There is no hope of this negotiation working
out in our favour. The worst feature is that this team from within
the Trade Ministry will decide the positions of Colombia in the
negotiation. It's stupid that the people who define our position
should be the ones who also defend it. The conflict of interest
is obvious. The tendency is and has been to seek to make the
job easy, defining positions to please the other side but which
damage the country."
All that remains true. And it's not my
two degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology or 40
years of business experience that qualify me to assert that,
rather it's that I am a Colombian who loves my country and also
it's my concern at the way people want to slip in by the back
door a treaty that will cause huge damage to many national interests.
If it were just international trade that
were at stake, it's possible that only the government might deal
with it. In that case, the position to negotiate--which should
be sought after and agreed--ought to be formulated by the Ministries
of Social Protection and Agriculture, responsible for the health
and employment of people in Colombia, not by the Ministry of
Trade. The role of the Ministry of Trade should be just to negotiate.
But this is not a treaty only on trade
matters. This treaty will impose legislation on all Colombia's
economic life. Measures on matters like foreign investment, public
sector procurement, health and phytosanitary measures, intellectual
property, competition and legal arbitration could cause great
damage to the country. In these areas, an attempt is being made
to impose rules far beyond what the World Trade Organization
has established and which Colombia fully abides by.
What's being attempted is a legal framework
to restrict local competition and not just reduce our competitive
export ability but also to affect our internal markets by means
of restrictive practices that will massively increase the cost
of living. Behind the screen of a hypothetical liberation of
external trade lurks this attempt to tie up internal markets
to the detriment of domestic consumers.
These rules could finish off the nation's
food security and put at risk access to health for the majority
of Colombians. If they are accepted they will have a supra-constitutional
character--coercive and irreversible--and they will prevent Colombia
from changing or influencing its future development strategies,
which will remain limited by the parameters of the agreement.
This treaty will seriously limit our sovereignty and so Congress,
as well as the controlling bodies have, beyond the right, the
obligation to take part in the whole process, beneath the watchful
gaze of public opinion.
Mexico's former foreign minister Jorge
Castaneda, the lead negotiator of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and the private business representative in
that negotiation, Juan Gallardo, have advised Colombia to negotiate
without haste, with a great deal of preparation and with all
those affected taking part. In the United States, the rules demand
that its Congress approve negotiating positions before negotitations
start, along with continual approvals throughout the process.
We cannot remain silent. Nor will it
be possble to prevent Congress and the controlling bodies playing
their due part to protect the common good and defend our national
autonomy. What's at stake is our national sovereignty."
Some reflections
This article puts eloquently and concisely
the fundamental objections to these so called "free trade"
deals. In particular, Sardi reminds us that the US position is
monitored and subject to approval by the US Congress. In stark
contrast, Zoellick's team insist on negotiating in secret beyond
the reach of scrutiny by the legislatures of the affected countries.
That was a fundamental reason behind the huge but unsuccessful
resistance in Costa Rica to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
More profoundly, Sardi reminds us that
our societies are seamless entities whose social, political and
economic needs and interests interact indivisibly. He is well
aware of the deeply cynical political sleight of hand that Robert
Zoellick and his team are trying to pull. When they talk about
"free trade" in countries like Colombia, they seek
to conceal their real intent, which is to dominate that country's
energy and other resources to serve the needs of the United States.
The same is true for every country they sit down to negotiate
with.
In the current state of international
affairs with one superpower ready to use all its political, economic
and miltary might to get what it wants, talk of "free trade"
is deeply misleading and disingenuous. Right now, nothing approaching
anything like "free trade" prevails, nor will do any
time soon. Monopolistic multinational corporations dominate the
international economy across the globe. "Free trade"
doesn't exist. It is a cant term taken over for contemporary
purposes from 19th Century British imperialist propaganda.
It may make sense to talk about more
or less regulated trade. But who makes and enforces the rules?
The failure of the World Trade Organization summit at Cancun
last year indicates what the United States, Japan and Europe
and their fellow travellers really mean by "free trade"
: a global deal to guarantee their interests and dominance according
to rules they impose. Robert Zoellick and his team know that
most people in the majority world are aware of this. That is
why they insist on negotiating their bilateral treaties in secret.
Sardi's article confirms that prominent business people in Latin
America understand US intentions all too well.
Toni Solo
is an activist based in Central America. Contact: tonisolo01@yahoo.com
Notes
1. The US trade representative's letter
to Congress on an Andean FTA . For Panama at: http://www.ustr.gov/
2. U.S. Department of State's Bureau
of International Information Programs Information briefing 03-February-2004
3. Emilio Sardi is Vice-President of
Tecnoquimicas.
Original Spanish verison published by
Colombian publication Portafolio 17th February 2004 and subsequently
distributed by MOIR 19th February 2004. For more information
try www.deslinde.org.co
or www.moir.org.co
Weekend
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