Anti-AFTA group meets in Havana

The opponents of the American Free Trade Area meet in Havana this week to develop a strategy to block the implementation of AFTA, accused of being an interventionist scheme by the USA to control the continent.

More than 600 members of social organisations from North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, are meeting this week (13th to 16th November) in Havana to block AFTA, considered as being an attempt by the United States to implement measures which will effectively allow this country to dominate and control trade and commerce in the continent.

Osvaldo Martinez, the Head of the Economic Committee in the Cuban parliament, claimed in the opening ceremony that “The American Free Trade Area is the epitome of subordination of the region, the passive acceptance of the annexation by the United States by means of a colonial pact”.

The choice of Havana for the meeting place is pertinent because since AFTA was planned in the 1990s by Washington, aiming to connect the trading communities of North and South America, Cuba has been left out of any part of the process.

Fidel Castro, who is presiding over the meeting, declared in April that “Latin American Nations are about to be swallowed up by the United States...The shark wants to eat the sardines”.

Marcia MIRANDA PRAVDA.Ru BRAZIL