DOWN WITH THE WTO AND PERMANENT WARS

We are social movements that have come to Cancun to protest against the WTO:

1.	A WTO that, together with the transnational corporations, the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, is a weapon of mass destruction of the
lives of the peoples, biodiversity, cultures, especially those of peasants
and indigenous peoples and that reinforces a model that reinforces the
exclusion of women in society and makes them the main victims of poverty and
violence.
2.	A WTO that puts profit over people and their needs and that puts social
justice under the laws of the market; that privatizes (STEALS) natural
resources (from the peasants and the indigenous) – land, water, seeds
– and privatizes public services (health, education¡¦).
3.	A WTO that negotiates its agreements in secret and that imposes its rules
upon the national constitutions, the institutions of the various countries
and that acts without any sort of democratic control.
4.	A WTO that through the logic of free trade imposes the survival of the
fittest. Its rules lead to permanent wars and reinforce militarism.
5.	A WTO that, at last, due to the ever growing opposition raised by its
polices in the developing countries, on the indigenous and peasants and the
society as a whole, finds itself at a gridlock and in an ever deepening
crisis. Its policies increase exclusion and inequalities regarding race,
gender and class.     

We have come to Cancun, not only to derail the WTO 5th Ministerial
Conference, but also in order to gather in our diversity and plurality, to
make known our demands and will, and to build, from below, the broadest
alliance of the diverse voices in the planet. We have come to struggle. 

On the 10th more than 10.000 peasants, indigenous, the youth and many other
social movements and unions that have come from Mexico and many other
countries in the world, reclaimed the streets of Cancun in order to demand
for food sovereignty, that agriculture and food must be taken out of the WTO
negotiations and to dismantle the WTO.  

Our march was blocked by the steel fences imposed by the Fox government and
during the march our comrade Lee Kyung Hae died. We express our solidarity to
the Korean delegation and to all his loved ones at the same time that we
denounce that the WTO is solely responsible for this tragic event. But we are
convinced that the death of Lee is, also, a cry of the excluded and a death
sentence to the WTO, because it exposes the social, political and moral
crisis caused by its policies. Lee has died in Cancun, but everyday more than
17.000 people die in the whole world victimized by the neoliberal policies
promoted by the WTO, the WB and the IMF.

Our struggle does not end today and does not end in Cancun. It is permanent.
We need to keep on fighting against the neoliberal policies, the governments
that implement them, the international financial institutions and the
transnational corporations during their meetings and also in our countries.
Building up broad alliances and alternatives, promoting mobilizations that
empower our struggle for a world in which the rights to life and to social
justice are ensured to men and women and in which the rights of indigenous
peoples, youth, peasants, women and workers are above all; a world based upon
the respect of nature and biodiversity.  

We are not commodities, we are not for sale. Another world is possible!
Down with the WTO! End the wars!
GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE, THE SOLIDARITY AND HOPE!

Social Movements Network
Cancun, Mexico – September 2003.