MONTREAL AND QUITO
Anti-FTAA protests hit Western Hemisphere
By April Lahne
Montreal, Quebec
On Oct. 31, between 10, 000 and 20, 000 people marched
through the streets of Montreal to protest the heinous trade
bill that we know as the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
(FTAA).
The FTAA representatives were holding a meeting in Quito,
Ecuador where an estimated 20,000 people, many of whom were
Indigenous people and farmers, also held an anti-FTAA
demonstration that was met with not only teargas on the part of
riot police but by the military. This violence on the part of
the repressive state did not succeed in stopping the protesters
from gaining entrance to the FTAA negotiations.
The FTAA bill is scheduled to be ratified in 2005. FTAA
bureaucrats are pushing to have the deal signed by 2003. If
this goes through, it will affect all 34 capitalist countries
in the Americas except for Cuba.
The Montreal demonstration was primarily a student strike
and was part of a broad action aimed at showing an undeniable
solidarity of people throughout the western hemisphere who are
actively working to defeat the FTAA like those in Quito.
This event shows the power that people have when united. The
hemispheric strike said in a huge way to the rest of the world
that the people of the Americas do not want the FTAA! This
action is only the beginning! For more information on how to
create a larger network for future hemispheric action, contact
the Canadian Federation of Students Quebec at www.cfs-fcee.ca
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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