Cuba Weighs in on the FTAA

 
For Latin Americans, the question of trade liberalization through the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is becoming increasingly mixed up with the emotional issue of US imperialism. Cuba has taken the opportunity to put in its two cents and capitalize on the opposition to globalization.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Quebec City Summit almost coincided with the May Day holiday, the Cuban government transformed its traditional Latin American Labor Day solidarity conference into an anti-FTAA event. Calls for a hemispheric organization to defend Latin America and the Caribbean against the "imperialist" FTAA were also woven into the Second People's Assembly of the Caribbean in the Dominican Republic, held the same week as the Summit of the Americas. The meeting's conclusions featured some harsh words for the FTAA and provided for the establishment of a regional committee of unions, NGOs and intellectuals from 13 Caribbean countries-including Cuba-to implement the positions taken at the event and prepare for the next assembly two or three years from now.

Both the Cuban and Dominican Republic forums served to coalesce what many observers see as a radicalization of the opposition to the Summit of the Americas process. Increasingly, the Summit is identified with the FTAA and the FTAA with what Castro is calling the US "annexation" of Latin America. Groups throughout the region are coming together over the theme of imperialism to fight against two common issues: the militarization of Latin America (Plan Colombia, Vieques, School of the Americas and US bases in Ecuador) and the FTAA. The mixing of these themes has provided Castro with a new link to groups throughout the hemisphere as he champions these causes. In his May Day speech, Castro reiterated that "for Cuba, it is absolutely clear that the US-imposed conditions, timing, strategy, objectives and procedures of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas lead inexorably to the US annexation of Latin America."

Castro is clearly attempting to capitalize on the discontent of the anti-globalization crowd, but in fact his statement seems more objective than the positions of many flat-out rejectionist critics. In conditioning his rejection of the FTAA on its "conditions, timing, strategy, objectives and procedures," Castro is taking much the same position as the AFL-CIO. The American Trade Union national center, through Thea Lee its trade person, has said that as currently structured it would reject the FTAA, and the Regional Inter-American Organization of Workers (ORIT) took a similar position at its congress the week after the Quebec Summit. Castro's demand for national plebiscites for the ratification of any FTAA agreement also mirrors the position of ORIT and many individual unions.

Castro continues to be the odd man out in Latin America, but he sees a new window of opportunity for his efforts to legitimize Cuba's role in the hemisphere. The Cuban government may feel that it has a chance with the controversy surrounding the FTAA.