PERUVIAN AG ORGS CALL FOR NATIONAL STRIKE

UNIFIED COMMITTEE OF AGRARIAN ORGANIZATIONS OF PERU ANNOUNCES NATIONAL AGRARIAN STRIIKE 29TH AND 30TH OF MARCH

The FREE TRADE AGREEMENT with the United States should not be signed by President Toledo

  1. Small farmers and cattle producers will be excluded from the market.
     
    • 97% Of the rural and native farming communities, communal companies, associations, cooperatives, committees and small producers from the mountains, jungle and coast, representing approximately 12 million of the rural farmers, have no possibility of converting to agro-export and thus will be excluded from a means of survival.
    • Also affected will be more than 3 million farmers who grow wheat, barley, cotton, rice, corn, oilseed (palm), sugar, milk products, potato and soy and more than 2 million cattle, pig and chicken farmers, because of the immediate elimination of tariffs and the foreseen importation of products like dark chicken meat and other products which receive subsidies from the US Government.

     
  2. Generalized violence and immigration will increase
     
    • The negative impacts of the TLC will generate massive migration of farm families, from the mountains to the jungle and the cities. As a consequence, the cultivation of coca, drug trafficking, terrorism, hunger, sickness, suffering, social violence, chaos, anarchy, national disintegration, social fragmentation, ingovernability, insecurity, generalized corruption will increase, and a militarized society will be imposed. There will not be security for national or foreign investment.

     
  3. The principal beneficiaries will be the United States and transnational importers
     
    • Fifteen percent of the world reserve in biodiversity and patents on living organisms will be turned over to the huge pharmaceutical industry of the United States. Our Andean and Amazon Peoples have spent 10,000 years studying and understanding these resources. We as Peruvians will loose the possibility of developing a clean and strategic national industry.
    • The United States will privatize and control the largest reserve of fresh water on the planet, which is located in our Amazon Region. The same will also be the case with our forests and energy resources.
    • The FTA with the United States does not give the Peruvian State the right to bring a case against an investment company before a court. Even worse, foreign investors will be able to overturn decisions of future governments in the courts. In other words, the Government of Peru can have a case brought against it, but our Government does not have the right to bring cases against US Companies.
    • Once the treaty takes effect, a group of large monopolistic food importers will be exonerated from paying 900 million soles in tariffs each year for massive importation of food stuffs, but the consumers will not benefit whatsoever from this.
    • The FTA will put our lands, the territory of the communities and the ancestral peoples in the hands of the transnationals. Our natural resources will be subject to the voracious consumption of the mining, petroleum, gas and forestry multinationals.

     
  4. This agro-export model is a concentrator of income which will go to a very few companies
     
    • Agro-export products; asparagus, mango, paprika, olives, artichokes, table grapes encompass only 80,750 hectares, and represents only 3% of the area under cultivation in Peru. This agro-export farming is done by less than five thousand medium and large modern companies from the coast and a few Andean valleys.
    • Meanwhile, millions of small property owners and family farmers don't have the possibility to export, they are without resources and in debt; lacking business culture, technology, credit, ability to negotiate, infrastructure and adequate legal frameworks.
    • The highly technical agro-export form of farming would only generate jobs which exploit young men and women. At the same time, the banks would continue to take lands from small farmers and then sell them to the large companies.

     
  5. There will be no medicine for the poor of the city or the country
     
    • Generic medicine will disappear for the poor population and the prices of medicine will double.

     
  6. The promise of compensation is just another lie.
     
    • The promise to create in the internal agenda with a fund of 161 million soles to compensate for the impacts of the FTA is yet another lie; this amount is for 5 years. It is impossible that this compensation fund will function, it is not a part of the 2006 budget, worse yet the national deficit will be approximately 900 million soles, because of the revenues which will be forfeited by eliminating tariffs on imports.

     

PERUVIAN PRODUCERS DEMAND

A REFERENDUM NOW! LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE. Respect the Green Letter

Let's defend national production, food security and the internal market.

We exhort the patriotic parliamentarians, national defense instead of joining the treason that President Toledo and his cabinet are trying to consummate.

We are advising President Toledo that the signing of a FTA with the United States is a betrayal of the poor from the countryside and of the country. We will hold him responsible for the consequences. Neither the farmers nor the majority of Peruvians are willing to tolerate this.

PERUVIAN AGRICULTURE CALLS FOR A NATIONAL MOBILIZATION FOR MARCH 29th and 30th , 2006. All of the producers and agricultural organizations of Peru, as well as the labor federations, popular organizations, the organizations for the defense of the regions, mayors and professionals should join together so that we can be sure that our protest during those days will obligate President Toledo to reflect and reconsider his foolishness. We call all organizations to coordinate actions, organize into mobilizing committees on local, provincial, regional and national levels.

Lima, March 9, 2006

ORGANIZATIONS CONVOKING THE NATIONAL STRIKE

  1. Antolín Huascar Flores - Nacional Agrarian Federation (CNA).
  2. Melchor Lima Ancco -Campesina Confederation of Perú (CCP).
  3. Alberto Mamani Mamani - Frente Nacional Ganadero (FNG).
  4. Federico León León -National Cotton Producers Association (ANPAL).
  5. Germán Altamirano Zúñiga - National Association of Communal Companies (ANECOMSA).
  6. Miguel Palacin Quispe - Nacional Confederation of Communities Affected by Mines (CONACAMI).
  7. Fernando Bravo Bustios - National Cattle Society of Perú (SONAGAN).
  8. Godoy Muñoz Ortega - Society of Producers of Registered Alpaca (aspar).
  9. Guillermo Gálvez Mendoza -National Society of the Vicuña (SNV).
  10. Alejandro Pereda Rodríguez - National Association of Sugar Cane Producers.
  11. Carlos Racchumi Casiano - National Committee of Rice Producers.
  12. Eladio Zamora Nava - Association of Market Retailers.
  13. Pedro Spadaro Yaya -National Association of Fruits.
  14. Javier García Pando - National Coordination Group of Potato Producers.
  15. Jhon Chauca Toro -National Association of Beef Producers- (FUNGICAVR).

REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

  1. Regional Committee of de Producers of Corn and Sorghum of Lambayeque.
  2. Regional Corn Association - Ucayali.
  3. Rice Producers of Jequetepeque
  4. CONVEAGRO - Ucayali.
  5. CONVEAGRO - Arequipa.
  6. CONVEAGRO - Piura.
  7. CONVEAGRO - Santa.
  8. Rice Producers Committee of San Martín.
  9. Rice Producers Committee - Jaén- San Ignacio - Cajamarca.
  10. Rice Producers Committee of Ocoña.
  11. Rice Producers Committee of Tumbes.
  12. Rice Producers Association from the Valley of Chira.
  13. Rice Producers Committee of San Lorenzo.
  14. Rice Producers Committee of Camaná.
  15. Rice Producers Committee of Valle de Majes.
  16. Rice Producers Committee of Utcubamba.
  17. Rice Producers Committee of Bagua.
  18. Rice Producers Association of Rioja.
  19. Rice Producers Committee of Moyobamba.

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