Presbyterians stand up for a fair trade agreement with Colombia
Roughly 200 activists gathered outside the White House to oppose the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that the Obama administration is expected to send to the Congress. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has urged the administration not to do so, based on Colombia’s horrendous human rights record, opposition to the FTA by the Presbyterian Church in Colombia and the anticipated negative impact on small farmers who will end up competing with cheaper food imports.
Presbyterians represented at the protest were the Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C., Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF), a longtime organization of peace activists with strong ties to Colombia and the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Four members of PPF were arrested by police as an act of civil disobedience when they refused to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House, which was littered with makeshift coffins representing union leaders murdered in Colombia.
The coffins were built at a Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, with workers from a number of groups.
Three of those arrested are members of the multi-faith community, Living Traditions, at the Stony Point Conference Center: Rick Ufford-Chase, center director, Katie Rains and the Rev. Sally Juarez. Kevin Moran of Tucker, GA, a PPF member, was present, as well as Amy Velez.
Each paid a $100 fine and was released with no pending hearings.
“At the end of the day, we can hope that President Obama doesn’t send the trade agreement to Congress,” said Ufford-Chase before the protest kicked-off. “We’ve fasted, written letters, made phone calls, demonstrated … We’ve done everything we can think of to say …. this is not good.”
Ufford-Chase said President Obama promised during his campaign not to support the Colombia FTA and he hopes that the president will remember those words and not pass the agreement onto the Congress. “I thought two months ago that this was a done deal.
“Still, it’s not gone,” he said, holding out the delay as a sign of hope.
Once the White House submits implementing legislation to Congress, the Colombia deal will be on a fast track timeline, meaning normal congressional procedures will be suspended. It could be submitted any day to the Congress for a vote since the White House is pushing for passage before Congress leaves for the August recess.
At the urging of partners in Peru, the Joining Hands networks of the PC(USA) have identified the fast track process as just one of the ways trade policy needs to be reformed, since it limits democratic processes of public debate. The Joining Hands effort also supports protections within trade policy for the vulnerable and opposes agreements that make it harder for governments to rein in corporations whose practices damage public health, the environment and the economy.
A trade reform campaign is under way among Presbyterians.
Obama did oppose the Colombia agreement as a presidential candidate. He highlighted Colombia’s labor and human rights atrocities in a debate and he pledged to replace the U.S. trade pact model, which is based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
“Most Americans oppose these NAFTA-style trade deals because they kill American jobs, but I suspect that if they knew that a U.S. trade deal would also benefit those who kill people for trying to exercise the basic rights we take for granted here, they would be even more outraged and disgusted,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, with 51 unionists killed last year — more than in all other countries combined — and at least 17 unionists killed so far this year. U.S. and Colombian labor unions agree that the Obama administration’s labor “Action Plan’ does not fix these problems and even its limited provisions are largely unenforceable. They vigorously oppose the Colombia trade deal.
“The structure of the FTA will only encourage further exploitation of Colombian labor and land by large corporate interests — some of which are guilty of aiding and abetting paramilitary groups,” said Daniel Kovalik, senior counsel for the United Steelworkers (USW) and attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in various human rights cases.