Call to Action: 10 September 2023 – International Day of Action Against the WTO and Free Trade Agreements
by La Via Campesina
*|MC:SUBJECT|* *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*
Call to Action: 10 September 2023 – International Day of Action
Against the WTO and Free Trade Agreements
21 August 2023 World Trade Organisation
<https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-against/capitalism-and-f...>
* This article is available in
* Español
<https://viacampesina.org/es/llamado-a-la-accion-global-dia-internacional-...>
* Français
<https://viacampesina.org/fr/appel-a-laction-10-septembre-2023-journee-int...>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
20 Years since Cancun: Lee Lives On! We Are All Lee, in this
struggle against the WTO and Free Trade Agreements!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It has been twenty years since the World Trade Organization’s
imperialist, neoliberal and neo-colonial free trade policies led to the
sacrifice of one of our peasant leaders at the gates of the Ministerial
meeting venue in Cancun, Mexico.
Lee Kyung Hae, a small-scale farmer from Korea, took the drastic step of
sacrificing himself to *protest against
<https://viacampesina.org/en/take-agriculture-out-of-the-wto-farmer-lee-ky...>*
the dire situation that thousands of peasants found themselves in after
their country embraced the WTO’s free trade policies. In his final
moments, he wore a banner around his neck with the words */“WTO Kills
Farmers.”/* Lee’s sacrifice brought to the spotlight the plight of all
peasants everywhere; the hyper-globalization of the 80s and 90s had a
devastating impact on rural communities worldwide, stripping them of
their land, livelihoods, and local markets.
Lee Kyung Hae gave his life to voice the concerns of millions of
peasants like him, who saw their lives upended as their countries opened
up under the banner of market reforms, only to be overwhelmed by fierce
international competition from affluent nations flooding their markets
with cheap imports, often produced in massive factories and large-scale
industrial farms. The WTO spearheaded these efforts to expand and find
new markets for transnational corporations and agribusinesses centered
in the wealthy cities of the global north.
Two decades have passed since that tragic day in Cancun, and things
have only worsened for both people and the planet.
The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which forms the core of the WTO’s
food and agriculture trade policies, continues to *wreak havoc*
<https://viacampesina.org/en/freedom-from-hunger-poverty-debt-and-death-fr...>
on people’s lives. Over the past 30 years, La Via Campesina has
consistently highlighted the negative and devastating effects of WTO
policies on both people and the planet. Whenever the WTO convened its
ministerial meetings to advance these harmful policies, La Via
Campesina’s organized peasant groups took to the streets to expose its
falsehoods and deceit. As the World Trade Organization subsequently
entered a state of limbo, numerous regional and bilateral free trade
agreements began to proliferate, with many of them resembling the highly
detrimental Agreement on Agriculture. Thus, whether with or without the
WTO, global trade remains entangled in these opaque agreements,
frequently negotiated behind closed doors without public consultation or
debates.
During the last Ministerial meeting in Geneva in 2022, La Via Campesina
declared that the time had come to dismantle the WTO, discard the
Agreement on Agriculture, put an end to harmful free trade agreements
and *establish a new trade framework for global agricultural trade based
on principles of food sovereignty
<https://viacampesina.org/en/geneva-end-wto-build-international-trade-base...>,
*solidarity, and internationalism. A new framework that respects and
upholds the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People
Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP)!
It called on World Trade Organization member states, particularly those
from the Global South, to lead the charge in creating this framework and
establishing it as the bedrock of global trade. The global food crisis,
resulting in increasing global hunger, exacerbated by speculative
commodity trading practices, pandemics, conflicts and wars, is glaring
evidence of a flawed global food system that primarily benefits
transnational agribusiness. Numerous reports have highlighted how, even
in the face of growing global hunger, a handful of large agribusiness
corporations continued to accumulate profits through speculative
practices. *The Agreement on Agriculture serves as a pact to secure
perpetual profits for agribusinesses
<https://viacampesina.org/en/la-via-campesina-responds-to-the-wtos-purport...>*,
disregarding the suffering of peasants, individuals, and the environment.
For this reason, as we commemorate the International Day of Action
against the WTO and Free Trade Agreements on September 10th, La Via
Campesina will intensify this struggle for an alternative. We will lead
the effort to construct this new framework through direct involvement of
peasants and numerous other small-scale food producers. We will
collaborate with our governments and civil society partners to generate
political pressure in support of this new paradigm.
*As members of La Via Campesina prepare for the 8th International
Conference scheduled for December 2023 in Bogota
<https://viacampesina.org/en/8th-international-conference-of-la-via-campes...>,
we call upon all our members to express solidarity with Lee Kyung Hae
and his sacrifice. *We encourage our members to organize exhibitions,
public discussions, protests, and to formulate ideas for an alternative
global trade framework. During the 8th International Conference in
Bogota, we will commemorate Lee with a mistica, celebrating his courage
and defiance and honoring the endeavors and sacrifices of millions of
peasants around the world who persist in nourishing the planet and
feeding the people, despite mounting challenges.
COMMUNICATION KIT:
In the next few days, we will be releasing an official poster that can
be adapted and used in your local and regional mobilizations and
actions. *The official poster and other materials, will soon be
available in this link.
<https://comms.viacampesina.org/s/qnHLEC3XnT3TmLs> *Check back in a few
days. For queries and press interviews, write topress(a)viacampesina.org
<https://viacampesina.org/en/call-to-action-10-september-2023-internationa...>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Faced with Global Crises, We build Food Sovereignty for the Future of
Humanity!
We are all Lee! WTO Kills Farmers! A New Trade Framework is Urgent and
Vital!*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/#WeAreAllLEE #EndWTO #8ConfLVC #NewTradeFrameworkNOW/
Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL>
Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/via_campesina>
Link <https://www.instagram.com/la_via_campesina_official/>
Website <https://viacampesina.org/>
To unsubscribe from the distribution list click here
<https://mail.viacampesina.org/lists/listinfo/Via-info-es>
For questions or comments, email *lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org*
<mailto:lvcweb@viacampesina.org?subject=Newsletter%20Comments%3A%20>
*Website:* www.viacampesina.org
*TV:* www.tv.viacampesina.org
To subscribe to this newsletter - Click Here
<https://mail.viacampesina.org/lists/listinfo/Via-info-es>
1 year, 4 months
- 1
- 0
Download the Communication Kit: 8th International Conference of La Via Campesina
by La Via Campesina
*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*
8th International Conference of La Via Campesina
The global peasant movement La Vía Campesina is convening its 8th
International Conference in Bogotá, Colombia, from 1 to 8 December 2023,
under the slogan "Faced with global crises, we build food sovereignty to
ensure a future for humanity".
Download the Communication Kit [1]
The International Conferences serve as the most important collective
decision-making, analysis, evaluation and planning space for the 182
national organisations articulated by regions around the world,
representing the landless, women, rural workers, migrants, fishermen,
pastoralists, indigenous peoples and diversities in 82 countries in
Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia, at national, regional and
continental levels.
During these international conferences, attended by almost 500 delegates
from 10 different regions, different issues affecting the diversity of
rural areas are discussed and analysed as a whole. It is here that La
Via Campesina defines, updates and refines its strategic lines of
action, as well as examining and ratifying new member organisations,
discussing internal functioning and launching new campaigns.
In the 30 years that La Vía Campesina has been organising, seven
international conferences have taken place. The first was held in Mons,
Belgium, in 1993, where for the first time the strength and solidarity
of peasant struggles from the global North and South were successfully
united, proposing food sovereignty as a concrete defence of peasant
agriculture against agribusiness.
During the 1996 conference in Mexico, the movement gave a strong
response against free trade agreements and the World Trade Organisation.
At the conference in India in 2000, the role and political participation
of women was realised when the first International Women's Assembly was
celebrated, sowing the seeds of peasant and popular feminism. At the
2004 conference in Brazil, the African continent joined La Via
Campesina, organising itself into two regions. Africa brought a
diversity of struggles and forms of organisation, strengthening the
struggle for environmental justice and against extractivism, colonialism
and racism.
At the Mozambique conference in 2008, we launched the International
Campaign - 'Stop Violence Against Women' - as a pedagogical tool within
our organisations and also to dialogue with societies in our struggle
against patriarchy and all forms of violence.
This campaign has been adopted by the whole movement. In 2013, in
Indonesia, the conference highlighted the broad participation of youth
in different tasks and structures within the movement. In 2017, in
Derio, for the first time, a group of 50 delegates from our member
organisations met alongside the conference to discuss sexual and gender
diversity.
In 2023, we will officially launch our tenth region, the Arab and North
African Region (ARNA), bringing together different organisations from
Palestine, Morocco and Tunisia to highlight the struggles of Arab
peoples resisting contexts of war and hunger.
As part of the 8th International Conference, the V Youth Assembly and
the VI International Women's Assembly will be held. These are important
spaces for debate, exchange, training and for the construction of common
strategies of resistance. The role of women and youth has been vital for
a movement with 30 years of history, it has strengthened it and has
brought important challenges as well.
La Via Campesina is today a key movement in the struggle for public
policies that recognize peasants as subjects of rights and the
importance of Food Sovereignty, agrarian reform, peasant agroecological
production, peasant seed systems and peasant and popular feminism. These
pillars are in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), recognised in
2018, which is a major achievement resulting from the struggles and
organisation of the peasant movement.
After the pandemic, La Via Campesina reaffirms food sovereignty as the
only real alternative to hunger, wars, climate and health crises.T oday
more than ever we emphasize the importance of recognizing the peasantry
and all its diversity as a subject of rights and transformations. Their
role is crucial in societies striving for social and climate justice in
their territories, providing healthy and accessible food for the working
class. We believe that it is possible to live with dignity in rural
areas by cultivating humanistic values, healing and caring for the land,
and fighting to put life before profit.
COMMUNICATION KIT:
Our conference is a living space, from communication and training, we
seek to create dialogues, meetings, debates and build collective
proposals. Help us to make visible the national, regional and
international process to reach our Conference in Bogota, Colombia.
Download the Communication Kit [1].
Use these materials with your organizations, in assemblies,
mobilizations, trainings, with our militants and allies. We encourage
you to translate the official poster into your local language, use our
blank version to adapt it!
To unsubscribe from the distribution list, questions or comments,
write to viacampesina(a)viacampesina.org
Website: www.viacampesina.org
TV: www.tv.viacampesina.org
To subscribe to this newsletter - Click Here [2]
Links:
------
[1] https://comms.viacampesina.org/s/XNANmRcfMsQk5Zw
[2] https://mail.viacampesina.org/lists/listinfo/Via-info-en
1 year, 4 months
- 1
- 0
- ← Newer
- 1
- Older →