[NYTr] C'Rica: Oppos'n Gains as Pro-CAFTA Forces Caught in Manipulation Scheme

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

IRC Americas Policy Program - Oct 2, 2007
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4604

Opposition Gains Strength as Pro-CAFTA Forces Caught 
in Manipulation Scheme

by Laura Carlsen

An internal memo leaked to the press shows the lengths to which the
Costa Rican government and pro-business forces will go to secure
ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

The memo recommends, among other things, inventing labor leaders to
serve as pro-CAFTA figureheads, launching a publicity blitz (Costa
Rican press reports that the proponents have already spent $500 million
dollars on publicity compared to anti-CAFTA expenditures of $30
million), and conducting a smear campaign against the opposition.

The memo also recommends threatening local government officials with a
cut-off of funds and an end to future political aspirations: "... any
mayor who doesn't win his canton will not get a penny from the
government in the next 3 years."

The memo was written by Vice President Kevin Casas to President Oscar
Arias. The resulting public outrage forced Casas to resign in an
attempt at damage control.

The core of the proposed strategy is a fear campaign that, according to
the memo, would stimulate four kinds of fear: fear of loss of jobs,
fear of attack on democratic institutions ("make NO the equivalent of
violence and anti-democracy"), fear of foreign influence ("insist on
the connection of NO with Fidel, Chávez, and Ortega"), and fear of the
impact of rejection of CAFTA on the government (financial instability,
lack of governance). The memo calls for uniting big business behind the
agreement, while presenting a public face conformed of civil society
members.

In its Oct. 1 edition, the Wall Street Journal followed the advice of
point number three and issued a dire warning that a NO victory would be
a triumph for Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

Fear campaigns have become the latest, and often very effective, forms
of manipulating democracy at the urns. The suggestions contained in the
CAFTA memo follow the model developed by U.S. political strategists
like Dick Morris, who consulted on Felipe Calderón's fear-based smear
campaign for the Mexican presidency and pushed for CAFTA's passage in
the U.S. Congress in 2005.

Public exposure of the fear campaign did not keep a desperate President
Arias from resorting to hyperbole. According to a Reuters dispatch, he
recently referred to a NO vote on CAFTA as " collective suicide." NO
Gains Strength as Vote Approaches

Opposition to the agreement received a shot in the arm following the
memo leak.

Since massive public education efforts began, the margin in favor of
ratifying the agreement began to shrink and following the memo polls
reveal a much faster reversal of the previous comfortable lead for
CAFTA proponents. Experts now say that with mere days before the
referendum, the vote appears to be a "technical tie."

NO supporters led a huge demonstration to close their campaign on Sept.
30. Press reports estimated over 100,000 people in the streets of San
José calling to reject CAFTA. Some dressed as skeletons, others wore
George Bush masks. Many emphasized the impact on job loss in small and
medium-sized industries, and social welfare programs.

The remarkable coalition of public employees, farmers, small business
owners, intellectuals, and assorted citizens has already changed Costa
Rican politics regardless of the outcome of the referendum vote. The
capacity for mobilization and unity, and public awareness of competing
economic models and their impact on society have increased
significantly. Costa Rica's Example

The opposition claims that what's at stake is the future of Costa
Rica's public welfare model.

Statistics bear out their contentions. In a region wracked by violence
and poverty, Costa Rica's model has worked surprisingly well at
ensuring peace and raising overall standards of living over the past
decades.

While other Central American nations spent money and lives on civil
wars and fighting off foreign intervention, Costa Rica abolished its
army and invested public funds in social programs to guarantee a basic
standard of living for the entire population. Later when other
countries clamored to create duty-free manufacturing zones, privatize
state industries, and liberalize trade, Costa Rica maintained control
of strategic public services.

The results are impressive. In the period of rapid economic integration
between 1990 and 2003, the four other Central American countries saw an
increase in malnutrition from 17% to 20% of the population, adding 2.4
million people to hunger counts.1 In Costa Rica, only 6% of children
under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, compared to 19% in El
Salvador, 20% in Nicaragua, 29% in Honduras, and a tragic 49% in
Guatemala.

Costa Rica consistently comes out at the top on all regional social
indices. Take a close look at the table below—illiteracy, hunger, food
security, per capita income—show far more positive results under the
more state-controlled model of Costa Rican development. Clearly, other
factors come to bear on the differences, but all signs indicate that
Costa Rica has been doing something right.

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Table 1 -  Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, 2007
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4604
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CAFTA's Lasting Legacy

If CAFTA is finally ratified by the Costa Rican Congress, the fight
doesn't end there. Nor do the changes required of Costa Rica by the
trade agreement.

The next step is a rush to push through what has euphemistically been
called "implementing legislation." Far more than rules to assure that
the clauses of CAFTA can be put into place in practice, implementing
legislation even more deeply restructures the economy and assures that
the orientation toward an export-oriented, free-market (read
corporate-controlled) economy is complete.

What are some of the examples of the legislation that the USTR has
demanded from its CAFTA partners? In the realm of intellectual
property, Guatemala—like a slow pupil—was forced to change its
intellectual property legislation not once, but several times, before
U.S. trade representatives were finally satisfied that it complied with
their strict demands on royalties, protection, and enforcement of
almost exclusively U.S.-owned intellectual property. The current
legislation demands that rounding up poor people who sell home-made
movie and music CDs become a national crime-fighting obsession. In
cities where real crime has eroded the fabric of society and made the
phrase "public security" sound like a bad joke, the priority is worse
than misplaced.

In the Dominican Republic, "implementing legislation" meant figuring
out a way to make up for the approximately $823 million dollars in
government revenues lost after eliminating tariffs to imported U.S.
goods. The government's answer was to apply consumer taxes on gas and
food. Millions of dollars that used to be paid by some of the
wealthiest transnational corporations in the world must now be paid by
Dominicans struggling to feed their families. The resultant increase in
the cost of living led to a national strike Oct. 2—the second protest
this year.

Implementing legislation cuts as deeply into national sovereignty as
the more well-known clauses of the trade agreement itself. Other
examples include limitations on the use of generic drugs and further
privatization of services. Some requirements appear to be positive—a
delegation of members of the Democratic Party recently made a big show
of requiring Panama to comply with labor regulations inserted in its
pending FTA. They might have scored points for future passage of the
FTA in the U.S. Congress but they apparently failed to make a big
impression in Panama—two labor leaders were murdered in broad daylight
a week after their visit. Despite window-dressing on human or labor
rights issues that Democrats have recently included to pass pending
FTAs, most implementing legislation has been adopted to make business
even easier and more lucrative for the companies planning to expand in
free-trade countries.

"If it's not broken, don't fix it"

The Central American Free Trade Agreement prescribes radical and
irrevocable changes to the Costa Rican economy, society, and political
structure. An even cursory look at the effects of the model in other
developing countries suggests that the course is risky at best, and
likely harmful to the country's most vulnerable families and overall
standard of living. Meanwhile, international indicators reveal that the
current model has functioned remarkably well and existing trade
agreements cover the export needs of the nation.

There's a simple folk-saying: "If it's not broken, don't fix it."
Adopting an economic model designed to benefit the economically
powerful is not a good way to allocate the abundant natural and human
resources of Costa Rica. Locking future generations into a set of laws
they did not make and cannot change is unfair and unwise.

Organizations of public employees, farmers, teachers, students, and
others have fixed their attention on Costa Rica's referendum. Already
Costa Ricans have flexed the muscles of a strong grassroots democracy
by actually voting on what are usually behind-the-scenes negotiations.
They have taken on the task of learning what the agreement says and
what it means. The ability of citizens to chart their own course will
affect nations around the world.

End Notes

   1. Food and Agricultura Organization's Special Program on Food
Security in Central America 

[Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org) is the director of the
Americas Policy Program, at www.americaspolicy.org, in Mexico City.]