PAYING ATTENTION

Mainers rally against the FTAA

By Sam Pfeifle

If you don’t know about the protests planned for Quebec City starting April 20, you’re not entirely alone. Nearly 40,000 folks — everyone from the AFL/CIO to the Sierra Club to the Global Action Network — are expected to converge on Canada’s borders to join even more protesters already residing within Canada and Quebec City. The city is so concerned that they are building miles of 12-foot high fencing around sections of the city. They even tried to pass a law banning scarves so that protesters wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from tear gas. However, plans are virtually nonexistent in the popular media, including the Press Herald, which has yet to cover the upcoming event.

Protesters and activists in Maine and elsewhere theorize that the huge corporations that run these media organizations would love it if the Free Trade of the Americas Treaty (FTAA) passed at the Summit of the Americas 2001. They cite the crucial point that the treaty would give corporations the right to sue individual countries if they were to “impede trade.”

For that’s exactly what this somewhat clandestine — they’ve been working on the thing since 1994 and the US Congress has yet to see a draft — treaty would allow. They “are trying to inflict control on the entire hemisphere by writing a new international law that will supersede national and local laws,” says local organizer Steve Burke. This is essentially what the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) does already, but FTAA will expand the agreement to cover the entire Western Hemisphere, barring Cuba, adding 31 new countries in Central and South America; countries not exactly known for their strong commitment to democracy or for standing up to the US.

Maine’s role in the protests will center around Jackman, the border town on the most direct route from most of southern New England to Quebec City. Burke and his organization, the Maine Global Action Network (MeGAN), have joined forces with the Maine Youth Campfire Collective and the town of Jackman to establish a temporary Hospitality House at the Border Riders Snowmobile Club, roughly 12 miles from the border. Activists who would like to participate in demonstrations either in Quebec or Jackman are welcome to stay at that location. “It has a kitchen,” says Burke, “and we’ll be prepared to feed hundreds of people.”

Better than that, the activists have also procured from the Department of Transportation “a way station that’s only several hundred yards from the border,” says Burke. From there, they’ll host teach-ins, drum circles, and other festivities that will suggest positive alternatives to the FTAA. That the State of Maine would be so cooperative is suggestive of just how shady this treaty could be. Even the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Peter Clavelle, has openly criticized the summit.

“This movement is pretty mainstream,” says Burke. “I think everybody realizes that NAFTA has been such a disaster that the thought of extending it to 31 other countries is scary . . . We’ve lost 300,000 good jobs because of NAFTA, and a lot of people are starting to feel this shift.”