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Photos from the IV Summit of the Americas

Take a look at photos from the IV Summit of the Americas, and see how opposed Latin Americans are to Bush’s FTAA.

Then, TAKE ACTION and make sure President Bush knows that the United States, like Latin America, does not support Bush’s destructive trade agenda.

In the days preceding the Summit of Americas, Argentina was covered in posters and political graffiti opposing Bush and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and promoting the alternative “Summit of the Peoples.”

Read the final declaration from the Summit of the Peoples.

A delegation of Bolivians traveled for four days on the bus to get to Mar de Plata with a huge poster of the faces of Bolivian activists killed during protests against privatization and neoliberal policies of former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada.

During the opening plenary session of the alternative Summit of the Peoples, Jorge Coronado, the coordinator of the Costa Rican coalition, Encuentro Popular, discussed the continuing opposition to CAFTA in Costa Rica, the only nation in Central America that has yet to ratify the treaty. For more info about the consequences of CAFTA in the United States, check out our CAFTA DAMAGE REPORTS.

During the opening plenary session of the alternative Summit of the Peoples, Enrique Daza, the coordinator of the large Colombian coalition against the FTAA, RECALCA, spoke to participants about the damage that the proposed Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) would wreak on small producers trying to find alternatives to growing coca or joining armed insurgencies. Take Action! Call your representative and tell them to fix AFTA before it is signed!

Elizabeth Tang, chief executive of the Honk Kong Federation of Trade Unions and coordinator of the Honk Kong People’s Alliance, which is coordinating protests against the World Trade Organization (WT0) ministerial in Hong Kong in December, spoke to the crowd at the Summit of the Peoples.

At the closing ceremonies of the Peoples’ Summit on Thursday, November 3, Indigenous Peoples kicked off the reading of the conclusions of the working groups.

The Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo is a group of women whose children were kidnapped between 1976 and 1983, when 30,000 Argentines were murdered by the U.S.-backed Argentine military dictatorship. Along with Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel and delegates from each country of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo led the November 4th march against Bush and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Mar de Plata, Argentina.

A large contingent of indigenous peoples from Argentina, Bolivia and all over the Americas marched with 50,000 others against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at the end of the III Peoples Summit of the Americas on November 4th, in Mar de Plata, Argentina. Other prominent marchers included Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales and a sizebale contigent of Canadians.

At the end of a long march through Mar de Plata, Argentina on November 4 to protest the policies of President Bush and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), over 50,000 people from all over the Americas gathered in a stadium for an appearance by Soccer legend Diego Maradona, to hear the declaration of the Summit of the Peoples of America, speeches by a Madre de Plaza de Mayo, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to and sing along to songs by prominent Latin American folk singer Silvio Rodriguez.

At a televised press conference during the summit, Argentine president Nestor Kirchener, on behalf of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, rejected President Bush’s plans for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

After the stinging defeat, President Bush made a speedy getaway from Argentina on Air Force One, but not before he’d been thoroughly rebuked for the Iraq War and for his plan for the FTAA.

A Sad Conclusion: Adolfo Perez Esquivel has tirelessly fought for human rights and against the FTAA. Short after the Summit of the Peoples, the headquarters of his organization, the Peace and Justice Service, was ransacked and destroyed.

Take Action: Write to your local paper and spread the word that vandalism and intimidation will not and cannot stop the struggle to stop the FTAA and promote greater equality and justice.