Obstacles for the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the 'military option': Lights and shadows in Latin America

JERÓNIMO MONTERO

Bekescsaba

Congreso; Third International Conference of Critical Geography; 2002

International Critical Geography Group

The project to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas, launched by George Bush in June 1990, is facing a number of demonstrations against it all along the Americas. Amongst these, it is important to point at a Hemispheric Meeting held last year in Cuba to debate about the negative consequences that it will surely bring to the workers and the environment, as well as to develop alternative proposals to it. Furthermore, the political situation seems also to be countering the interests of the White House. The situation of social revolt in Argentina, the recently failed coup in Venezuela and the difficulties to establish the Plan Colombia, constitute strong obstacles to the FTAA. In virtue of these events, the Department of State is launching it ?military option? in order to favour the advance of the negotiations towards the FTAA, expanding the Plan Colombia to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, settling military bases in strategic territories, and training military staffs in Latin America under the justification of a ?war against terrorism? in the international scale. In this paper I aim at analysing the main characteristics of the FTAA and its potential consequences for workers in the Americas, and the growth of the American military practices and interventions in Latin America. Furthermore, the main struggles against the project are also analysed briefly.