Marching on Cancún

Mexico City

Peasants, punks, students, green activists, union workers, social leaders and many more will meet in Cancún to say no to the WTO. The Zapatista Army has also announced it will participate in some way. As the main movement that unites diverse social forces, the Zapatistas, by their announcement, gave a vital push to the organization of opposition to the WTO gathering. The Zapatista Army was the first movement in the world to speak out against global neoliberalism when it appeared publicly for the first time in January 1994--not coincidentally the same day NAFTA was implemented.

"We are against the WTO because they want to patent our products, because they want to privatize our resources," says Mayan peasant leader Pedro Dzib of UNORCA (National Union of Autonomous Regional Farmer Organizations--a Mexican member of the international network Vía Campesina). "We cannot allow them to privatize CFE [the Federal Electricity Commission], we cannot allow them to flood our market with foreign grains just because theirs are cheaper." Dzib reflects the feelings of millions of peasants and small farmers who have seen prices for their products fall dramatically as a result of NAFTA--and who see the WTO as an expansion of NAFTA.

During the weeks leading up to Cancún, members of UNORCA have been busy informing peasant communities about the WTO ministerial conference and its implications for their lives. Not a hard job, as peasants are living the consequences of NAFTA every day. "They may not understand the macroeconomic details, but they know something is going wrong," says Victoria Santos, technical director of the Organization of Communal Forest Producers of the Maya Region.

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