Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96L.971203141235.18596B-100000@abc.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 14:14:06 -0600 From: kerry <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Peoples' Movements vs. "Free" Trade and the WTO - Worldwide (fwd) To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 1 Dec 97 10:11:07 CST From: Play Fair Europe! Aachen <mailto:playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de>**Please help us to distribute this message**
)From the 23 to the 25 of February 1998, 600 representatives of peoples movements will meet in Geneva to establish a platform for worldwide action against trade liberalisation: the Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade and the WTO (PGA).
The PGA will work as a tool for coordination, exchange of information and mutual support for the struggles of all those hit by neoliberal globalisation. It calls for non-violent civil disobedience and the construction of local alternatives by local people, as answers to the action of multilateral institutions, governments and corporations.
The first big-scale action in the calendar of the PGA will be a wave of decentralised mobilisations and protests all over the world parallel to the Second Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which shall take place on 18-20 May 1998.
The meeting in February will be the founding conference of the PGA, since it will lay down the basis of the alliance in the form of a manifesto. It is being convened by a committee formed by some of the most representative peoples' movements of all continents, including peasant movements (like the Brazilian Movimento Sem Terra, the Indian KRRS and the Peasant Movement of the Philippines), indigenous peoples (like the Mexican Zapatistas, the Nigerian Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, the Indigenous Women's Network of North America and the Pacific and FIA, a Maori organisation from Aotearoa), unions (like the Central Sandinista de Trabajadores from Nicaragua) and women's organisations (like Mama 86, an organisation of Ukranian women affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and the above mentioned Indigenous Women's Network).
Other events will take place around the first PGA conference. From the 18 to the 21 of February, there will be several information and discussion roundtables on topics such as gender, food production, culture, economics, etc., prepared by organisations participating in the conference. On February 22 there will be a one-day intensive seminar on the WTO, the MAI and trade liberalisation. On February 26 there will be a number of coordination and planning sessions in small groups, divided according to the topics treated in the roundtables. Finally, on February 27 there will be a European meeting to launch a Europe-wide movement of civil disobedience against "free" trade.
If you want more information about the PGA and its first conference, please visit the web page http://www.agp.org or send a message to mailto:playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de
IMPORTANT: If you are interested in this conference and come from Africa, Asia, Latin America or Central and Eastern Europe, please get in touch with the conference secretariat RIGHT NOW, even if you are not sure about your participation. The Swiss visa procedure is probably the most difficult one in the whole world. There will be limited funds to support the travel expenses of some delegates; you will receive more information about this at the beginning of 1998, but you should anyhow send your application now.
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