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Workshop Schedule St. Aloysius Church, Saturday, April 12 Contents:
Workshop Block I: 9:30 - 11:00 am1. The Fight against Privatization (CISPES) This workshop will include folks from Central and South America, as well as those fighting privatization in the US. 2. Plan Puebla Panama: Paving the Way for Corporate Globalization in Latin America Sponsor: ASEJ/ACERCA (Contact person: Brendan O'Neill; (802)863-0571; (802)598-8373 (c); email: brendan@asej.org) The Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) is a 25 year $10 billion package of 28 megaprojects to integrate the infrastructure and regulatory systems from Puebla, Mexico to Panama laying the physical foundation for the expansion of "free trade" in Latin America. This workshop will provide updates on the status of the PPP and its relationships to other socially and ecologically devastating free trade plans in the region and the growing resistance to the PPP. We will get updates on organizing against the PPP and then we will open a discussion to devise a strategy to oppose the PPP. We will single out the IDB as a target and specifically focus on connecting the PPP/IDB to ongoing and upcoming work with World Bank/IMF, FTAA, CAFTA, and WTO and its southern twin the Integration of the Infrastructure in the Region of South America (IIRSA). The session will be 50% informational and 50% strategy. 3. Skillshare: Lobbying tactics to change US foreign policy Sponsor: SOA Watch (Contact person: Gail Taylor; (202) 234-3440; gtaylor@soaw.org This workshop will:
4. The Distortion of National Economic Policy by the World Bank, IMF and IDB, with a Focus on Brazil Sponsor: The Development GAP/SAPRIN/Rede Brasil (Brazil Network). (Contact person: Steve Hellinger; (202) 898-1566; shellinger@developmentgap.org The panelists will describe the impacts of the structural adjustment
policies prescribed by the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank
and International Monetary Fund over the past two decades on the people
and economies of Latin America with an emphasis on the region's largest
economy, Brazil. A focus will be on the ongoing misrepresentations by
these institutions as they continue to marginalize civil society and its
efforts to democratize economic policymaking and address the policy roots
of poverty and inequality. Panelists include Adhemar Mineiro of Rede Brasil
and Steve Hellinger and Stephanie Weinberg of The Development GAP/SAPRIN. Sponsor: School of the Americas Watch (contact person: Jeff Winder; jwinder@soaw.org) While the bombs fall in Iraq, the war on terror is being fought harder than ever in Latin America, with equally disastrous consequences for the civilian population. This workshop will address military training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas) as well as in-country mobile training teams, the war on drugs in the Andes, and its recent expansion to a "counter-terrorism" mission that includes expensive arms transfers, intelligence sharing and projects like defending the oil pipeline in northern Colombia. Panelists:
Sponsor: Mexico Solidarity Network; (Contact person: Tom Hansen; (773) 583-7728; msn@mexicosolidarity.org) The current crisis in Mexico's rural areas has its roots in neoliberalism, US-imposed policies and free trade. The workshop will look at the results of the neoliberal model in Mexico's rural areas, with special focus on the impact on idigenous communities. We will discuss the impacts of NAFTA, agricultural policies in the US and Mexico, World Bank and IMF policies, and Plan Puebla Panama. We will also look at the active construction of alternative development models in Zapatista communities. 7. Strategies for affordable housing in the District of Columbia Sponsoring group or coalition: Project Washington Inner City Self Help (Contact Person: Linda Leaks; (202) 332-8800; lleaks@wishdc.org www.wishdc.org) The workshop will give an overview of the housing situation for immigrants, advocating for a movement that ensures affordable housing, fights displacement, and promotes cross-borders culture. Linda Leaks, WISH executive director, will lead the workshop. WISH's mission is to assist low income and working people to recognize and realize their power to effect change - to bring about improvement in their lives and their communities and to participate actively in the civic affairs of the District of Columbia. 8. Connecting the struggle to free political prisoners to the Latin American Solidarity Movement: The cases of Lori Berenson, Leonard Peltier, and the Cuban Five Sponsors: IFCO/Pastors for Peace US/Cuba Friendshipment; Free Lori Berenson
Committee Details coming. 9. How to get the media to work for you! Sponsors: GW Assoc., (Contact person: Peter Wirth; (315) 476-3396; pwirth@accucom.net) and Action LA/PeaceNoWar (Contact person: Lee Siu Hin; SIUHIN@aol.com; (213)413-1778) In the first half of the workshop, Peter Wirth will explore the need for the activist community to take a look at what priority is placed on affecting public opinion on our issues and review a few case studies to explore what works. In the second half of the workshop Lee Siu Hin of Los Angeles will offer some simple, no brainer, low budget ways to create your own webpage, publish your own newsletter and do effective community outreach. 10. A Dialogue on Solidarity: Linking struggles in the US to struggles in Latin America Contact person: Jon Everhardt; jon@lasolidarity.org Representatives from various organizations that organize with poor people and immigrants in the United States will have a roundtable discussion on their experiences creating cross-national ties with other groups in Latin America. Speakers will discuss the ways they have built mutually beneficial relationships with organizations in Latin America and develop the idea of “Horizontal Solidarity.” Speakers will include representatives from Kensington Welfare Rights Union; the Latin American Action Center; and the FMLN (Washington DC). back to top Workshop Block II: 11:15-12:451. Trade Issues: Information Session, FTAA, CAFTA, and WTO Sponsors: Quest for Peace/Quixote Center; Mexico Solidarity Network, Alliance for Responsible Trade, Corporate Watch, CISPES. This workshop will lay out basic information on the trade issues confronting Latin America and the Caribbean today. There will be four presentations and plenty of time for questions and discussion.
2. Providing Sanctuary for Human Rights Defenders from Colombia Sponsor: Chicago Colombia Sanctuary Project (CCSP) (Contact Persons: Dan Dale, Chicago Colombia Sanctuary Project and Martha Pierce, Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance; (773) 293-3680; cmsa@chicagosanctuary.org) This workshop would be facilitated by Dan Dale and Martha Pierce from CCSP. We will discuss the history and meaning of sanctuary, and how/why we are called to implement this idea in response to the current crisis in Colombia. The mission of CCSP is to provide temporary refuge for Colombians who are forced to leave their country because of their work on behalf of human rights; to educate US citizens about the conflict in Colombia, and the role of the U.S. in it, with the goal of changing U.S. policy toward Colombia; to support non-violent actions leading to a just resolution to the conflict in Colombia. We will talk about the “nuts and bolts” of how to organize a sanctuary program, as well as the broader issues of public policy advocacy, faith-based organizing in the solidarity movement, and development of connections/links between and among groups working on Colombia issues, and other issues such as immigration reform, SOA, FTAA, indigenous rights, etc. 3. The International Monetary Fund (IMF): Economic Enforcer in
Latin America & the Caribbean The International Monetary Fund has over the last 25 years designed and enforced (with some help from its friends at the World Bank) the neo-liberal “structural adjustment programs” that have led governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to adopt “free-trade” policies, construct “free-trade zones,” cut social spending, privatize state-owned companies, lay off public sector workers, and orient economies to export production. The last three years have seen public revolts against the failed neo-liberal policies, starting in Ecuador and spreading to Bolivia, El Salvador, and, most notoriously, Argentina, where the financial crash, caused in large part by the IMF, has turned the entire society against the IMF. The election of Lula as President of Brazil is likewise a rejection of neo-liberal policies. This workshop will describe how the IMF gets its power, how it wields it, and how it is being resisted. Speakers will include: Guadalupe Sequeira, Consumers Defense Network (Nicaragua); Camille Chalmers, PAPDA (Haiti); Monica Martins, Social Network for Justice & Human Rights (Brazil); a representative of CESTA (El Salvador); and, to talk about the IMF’s new “poverty reduction strategy” (PRS) process, Sarath Fernando of MONLAR (Sri Lanka), who is in Washington to urge the IMF to reject his country’s PRS document. 4. Free Trade Agreements Force Genetically Modified Crops on Mexico and Central America Sponsor: ACERCA and the Institute for Social Ecology's Biotechnology Project (Contact person: S'ra DeSantis; (802) 652-0806; sra@riseup.net) This workshop will discuss agricultural components of free trade agreements, specifically focusing on genetically modified organisms. It will focus on the contamination of indigenous corn with DNA from GMOs in Southern Mexico and the impacts this will have on the environment and farmers. GMO contamination will be linked with free trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA. Panelist: S'ra DeSantis - organic vegetable farmer in VT, research associate for ACERCA, and staff at the Institute for Social Ecology's Biotechnology Project 5. Demilitarization in Latin America: The case of Vieques and the Continental Campaign to Counter Militarization (CCCM) Sponsor: Fellowship of Reconciliation, Washington; Office on Vieques and Nonviolence International, part of the CCCM Coordinating Committee. (Contact person: Andrés Thomas Conteris; (202) 232-1999 andres@antimil.org; Sonia Dueño; (202) 488-5613.) The First Hemispheric Forum on Militarization will take place in Chiapas,
Mexico from May 6-9, 2003. This workshop will examine how, in the face
of war and the human and environmental impacts caused by the economic-military
hegemony of the Government of the United States throughout the world,
the Continental Campaign to Counter Militarization endeavors to strengthen
communication and coordination among organizations who seek to demilitarize
the Americas. We will discuss how to globalize the resistance to the economic-military
policies with creativity and nonviolence toward the demilitarization of
the Americas. Continental Networks that are part of the Campaign: Grito
de los Excluidos, COMPA, Jubileo Sur / Americas, and SERPAJ-AL (list in
formation). 6. Immigrant Rights and the Struggle for Legalization Sponsor: The National Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty for Immigrants (Contact person: Beatriz Maya, bmaya@floc.com; Monica Santana centrolatino@hotmail.com) This workshop will explore the situation in which immigrants and particularly undocumented immigrants live and work in the USA. It will examine how immigration laws act as an instrument to control labor in a global context in which capital can freely move across borders while labor is kept where it is most profitable. It will cover the immigrant rights movement in the USA, its history, achievements, and demands, as well as the struggle for legalization, and the current situation, including bills in Congress. It will look at the next steps including collaboration with the solidarity movement. The National Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty for Immigrants was established in 1999 as a grassroots coalition of community, labor and faith-based groups with a large immigrant and undocumented immigrant base. The Coalition's purpose is to build a strong movement for immigrant labor and human rights led and organized by immigrants themselves. 7. Globalization and Labor Rights in Colombia Sponsor: Committee for Social Justice in Colombia (Contact person: Jana Silverman; (212) 854-5468; jks95@columbia.edu) Colombia is the world's leader in labor rights abuses, with 184 unionists murdered in 2002 alone for their work in defending labor rights as well as for their outspoken advocacy for bringing peace with social justice to South America's most war-torn country. According to CUT (Colombian national trade union federation) statistics, 95% of these murders are committed by right-wing paramilitary forces, many times with the support of members of Colombia's armed forces. US-based transnational corporations like Coca-cola, Drummond Mining, and Occidental Petroleum that are currently investing in Colombia are also contributing to the massacre that is occurring against the Colombian labor movement by collaborating with vicious paramilitary forces as a way of breaking any union that attempts to organize against them. The speakers in this workshop will discuss the deteriorating human rights situation in Colombia, the role that corporations are playing in the escalation of the Colombian conflict, and how students and labor activists in the United States can help stop the genocide that is currently occurring against the Colombian union movement. SPEAKERS:
8. Cuba: Another World is Possible Sponsor: (Contact person: Ignacio Meneses; (313) 516 7898 laborexchange@aol.com) This workshop will examine how Cuba, a country with few natural resources, has achieved so much in health care, education, sports and culture despite 44 years of US aggression and the US imposed blockade. We will also explain and discuss the issue of the Cuban Five. 9. Solidarity Tactics If you or your friends get arrested you are not helpless! Learn techniques you can use to protect yourself and others if you wind up in police custody and tactics you can use to express solidarity with those who have been arrested. DC Justice and Solidarity Collective 10. Anti-oppression (SOAW, etc.) back to top Workshop Block III: 5:30 to 7:00 pm1. Trade Issues: Organizing Strategies for Fall 2003 CAFTA, FTAA, WTO, SOA Sponsors: Quest for Peace/Quixote Center; Mexico Solidarity Network, Alliance for Responsible Trade, Corporate Watch, CISPES. This is the follow-up strategizing workshop to the information workshop in the morning. Speakers will address the upcoming opportunities for organizing in the Fall. They include:
2. Realities of debt & structural adjustment Sponsor: The Social Justice Committee (Canada) Contact person: Derek MacCuish; (514) 933-6797; sjc@qc.aibn.com The workshop will include a showing of the video "The Silent Killer:
Debt and Honduras" (30 minutes, produced by the Social Justice Committee)
followed by a presentation on how the IMF and World Bank are using the
debt crisis to demand privatization and cuts to public spending in countries
like Honduras and Nicaragua. 3. Argentina's creative struggle against the IMF Sponsor: Argentina Autonomista Project, ASEJ, SOA Watch (Contact person: Graciela Monteagudo; e-mail: autonomista1@aol.com) Two Argentina piqueteras, and an Argentine-US human rights and community artist, will talk about the History of Argentina's social movements, the December 2001 insurrection and the non hierarchical and autonomist groups that are active in the resistance and the creation of alternative organizing models against neoliberal politics of plundering, unemployment and starvation. Presenters: Florencia Vespignani, MTD Anibal Veron Lanus, Maria Elena Barrio, MTD Anibal Veron Almirante Brown, Graciela Monteagudo, Argentina Autonomista Project. 4. Indigenous Rights (CIS, AIM, EPICA) 5. Connecting the Drug War to the War on the Poor (Critical Resistance and SSDP) 6. Let Haiti Live! Working for a more Just policy towards Haiti Sponsoring Group: Let Haiti Live: Coalition for a Just U.S. Policy (Contact: Melinda Miles, Coordinator, Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center; (301)699-3443 x121; Melinda@haitireborn.org) 7. A deeper look into Venezuela’s political conflict Sponsor: Center for Economic and Policy Research (Contact person: Marya Murray Diaz; (202) 293-5380 ext. 208; fax: (202) 588-1356; murraydiaz@cepr.net) This workshop will include an overview of the current situation in Venezuela, including the role of the U.S., the media, and grassroots groups, followed by a group discussion. A thirty minute clip will be shown of the movie “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” an Irish documentary giving an inside-Miraflores view of the coup on April 11 as well as the return to democracy April 13. Speakers: Roland Denis (One of the foremost intellectuals on the grassroots movement in Venezuela); Marya Murray Diaz (CEPR) 8. Resisting US Empire, from Colombia to the Middle East and the Philippines Sponsors: SUSTAIN and Left Turn This workshop will attempt to show how Bush and Co have used the "war on terrorism" to justify US military intervention in Colombia, Palestine, Iraq, and the Phillipines and how their direct and, in the case of Palestine, indirect involvement has led to massive repression, human rights abuses, and war crimes. By discussing the similarities and differences in the situation in these countries we hope to contribute to the strengthening of resistance to US imperialism in these countries and, most importantly, here in the US. Speakers:
9. Health & Safety at Progressive Actions or "What Every Protestor Should Know" Sponsor: DC Action Medical Network (Contact person: John Cluverius, (202) 242-5248 This workshop provides practical information on taking care of yourself and your friends if you plan to attend protest events. While the focus will be on street protests (in cities), much of the material may also be applicable to backwoods situations. It covers: preparing for actions, personal care, affinity group safety considerations, weather-related hazards, chemical weapons exposure, managing and treating stress, detox and aftercare, and questions. Includes a 16 page guide for all participants. 10. The INS Round Up, Homeland Security Dept and Patriotic Act
II According to Ashcoft, every non-immigrant residents in US must be registered by 2005, so far INS still needs to register all middle east/south Asian/north African for a few more months before starts to register Chinese, Asian Indian, south/Central Americans, and Africans (and most likely white Europeans will be the last one on the list). No one even mentions the increasing immigrant raids and harassment from the government, the new immigrant bureaucracy under the Department of Homeland Security and probably the new Patriotic Act II. Instead of waiting, we should organize the coordinating efforts to support people who affects by INS registration, and upcoming US "anti-terror" policies and discuss/brainstorm a strategy to form a nationwide Immigrants Rights Watch: A national coordination of support networks to support and counter INS registration/Patriotic Acts II against immigrants. back to top |
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