Students protest CAFTA

Several UW students who gathered to protest a new trade policy being promoted by six delegates of Central American nations were asked to leave the Bank of America Executive Education (BAEE) building by UW Police Department officers yesterday afternoon.

The UWPD were called after protestors, who began their rally at the entrance of the building, walked to the fourth floor, and chanted outside the room where delegates were to speak.

Protestors stayed for several minutes until they were asked to leave by police, after which demonstrators returned to the building's entrance and continued the rally throughout the delegates' luncheon.

The policy in question was the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a pending agreement between the United States and Central American countries, the ostensible function of which is to lower trade barriers and promote free trade in the Western hemisphere. The treaty has yet to be approved by Congress and faces opposition by trade unions, industry and government figures, among others.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-7th District, attended the luncheon in order to question delegates about some of CAFTA's provisions, according to McDermott spokeswoman Jane Sanders.

McDermott hurriedly passed by demonstrators as he exited the building, declining protestors' requests for comments about CAFTA, saying he had to get to another appointment.

"These ambassadors do not represent the people of ... Central America," said Mauricio Martinez, a UW business student from Nicaragua who spoke on the steps of the BAEE building. "The whole CAFTA agreement ... is something that the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the Bush administration imposes on our countries and says, 'You have to pass this, you have to let our corporations go in and take over your markets.'"

Delegates inside the building took a different tone.

"The concept that I want to stress here is the concept of mutual benefit," said Flavio Dario Espinal, ambassador to the United States from the Dominican Republic. "We see this is as a political, strategic cooperation with the U.S."

Delegates emphasized the possible benefits of CAFTA, including the facilitation of cheaper products by dropping trade barriers, improved labor standards, higher wages, promotion of democracy and expansion of technological enterprises.

Jose Guillermo Castillo Villacorta, Ambassador to the United States from Guatemala, claimed trade barriers increase by 40 percent the price of chardonnay imported from Washington State into his country.

Espinal and the other delegates spoke in front of a group of about 60 people, including businesspeople, students and professors, while demonstrators waited downstairs.

Villacorta said he felt "sorry" to see the demonstrators.

In contrast to CAFTA, "[The protestors] are not producing anything to alleviate the poverty in our countries," he said.

Villacorta admitted the proposed trade agreement was not a solution to all the problems faced by Central American countries, but nevertheless called it "a great tool that is going to put our countries on the road to success."

Carlos Marentes, a member of the Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice, said he disagreed with claims that CAFTA would fight poverty.

"We know that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in Mexico had a very devastating effect," he said. "What it basically did in the rural area [where] 8.2 million people reside -- over 50 percent of them were driven to dire poverty... Prior to that, the number was only about 30 percent. It's still a bad situation, but it got worse."

NAFTA, a trade treaty between the United States, Mexico and Canada, went into effect in 1994.

Other groups represented at the rally included UW Students for Fair Trade, Student Labor Action Project and the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA).

Margarita Ramos, a second-year medical student who co-founded Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, said CAFTA would make it harder for poorer countries to have access to generic versions of pharmaceutical drugs because it would extend the lives of patents and keep clinical trial data from being made public.

"If a country in Central America wanted to get ahold of a new essential medicine that could cure a disease or treat a disease that's affecting that population but this drug was recently invented in the U.S., then they would have to buy it from the pharmaceutical at the high price," Ramos said.

The luncheon meeting was sponsored by the Washington Council on International Trade. Other representatives included ambassadors from El Salvador and Nicaragua, an envoy from Costa Rica and a trade minister from Honduras.