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TechnoratiThreats, Dirty Tricks, Fake Polls: Costa Rica Votes Under Duress on 'Free Trade'
No country has ever had a national referendum on a "free trade" agreement before - which is not surprising since most of these agreements wouldn't be approved by the citizenry. Bill Clinton couldn't even get a majority of his own party in Congress to vote for NAFTA in 1993, and it's been downhill for these types of agreements ever since.
So Costa Rica - the region's richest and most democratic country -- will be setting a precedent on Sunday with its referendum on CAFTA (the Central America Free Trade Agreement), which was negotiated in 2004.
Costa Ricans might want to watch out for a repeat of presidential elections last year, where current President Oscar Arias squeezed out a narrow (1.1 percent) victory over progressive candidate Ottón SolÃÂs, who criticized CAFTA in his campaign. In that campaign, erroneous polls reported by the media showed Arias with a large lead of 11-19 percentage points. This led to a record low turnout at the polls. Costa Rica could very well have a different president, and a different trade policy, if not for the impact of this false polling.
The latest polls in Costa Rica give an advantage to the "yes" vote, but things have been moving rapidly towards "No" since an embarrassing high-level government memo was leaked a few weeks ago. The memo, as the Los Angeles Times described it, "outlined a campaign of dirty tricks intended to sway voters." This included telling mayors that their cities would "not get a penny from the government for the next three years" if they did not deliver a majority of voters for CAFTA. In the words of the memo, the government also needed to "stimulate fear" among the voters, including "fear of the loss of jobs."
The Bush Administration joined the campaign to "stimulate fear," with the U.S. Ambassador threatening that Costa Rica could lose some of it existing access to U.S. markets if the voters reject CAFTA. This led US Congresswoman Linda Sánchez to remind the Ambassador's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that such interference in Costa Rica's electoral politics violates US, Costa Rican, and international law. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi also weighed in with a letter stating clearly that Costa Rica's access to U.S. markets under the Caribbean Basin Initiative are not conditioned on acceptance of any trade agreement.
In fact, the threats from the US government, and repeated by the Costa Rican proponents of CAFTA, are empty. There is only a small portion of Costa Rica's trade preferences that Congress would have to renew next year. It is politically inconceivable that the Democratic majority in Congress - which voted against CAFTA when it was approved here - would move to punish Costa Rica for its voters having rejected the same agreement.
Despite the intimidation, Costa Ricans brought a record 100,000 people (equivalent to seven million in the US) into the streets last weekend for a "No" vote. They have good reasons to reject CAFTA: they do not want their farmers wiped out by subsidized grains and other agricultural products from the U.S. They also have a strong environmental movement that vehemently objects to provisions in CAFTA - like NAFTA - that would give corporations new legal rights to challenge environmental laws. And Mexico's post-NAFTA economic performance - about a third of its pre-1980 growth - is less than inspiring.
Of course "free trade" is a marketing slogan rather than a description of the actual policy that is up for a vote. These agreements - including CAFTA -- increase some of the most costly barriers to international trade (such as in pharmaceuticals) while lowering others (e.g. for subsidized US agricultural exports).
A "No" vote in Costa Rica would deal another blow to the Bush Administration's foreign commercial policy, which has already suffered numerous defeats: including the collapse of their proposed "Free Trade Area of the Americas;" the stalled talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO); and the administration's loss of "fast track" authority to negotiate new agreements with minimal congressional input.
Costa Rica is one of the richest countries in Latin America, and has a well-developed democracy. That democracy will be put to a new test with this referendum.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.
14 Comments so far
Show AllThe secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived. - Oscar Wilde
The problem with the discussion between PJD and Daniel Shays is with the term free market, which should be put in quotation marks. The way it is used currently, it describes everything from von Hayek to George Bush.The libertarian mutualist dream of a market with no outside influence seems unrealistic to me, and I think history shows it to be.It never has existed and never can. Capitalism trends naturally and inexorably towards monopoly and corporatism.
"The free market is the weapon of the economically powerful," Otto von Bismarck.
Freedom between the economically powerful and the economically weak results in an economic dictatorship of the economically powerful over the economically powerless.
The only organized entities able to counter the massive power of multinational corporations are states.
Unfortunately, corporations pour investments into dicatorships, political parties and politicians. And they expect a return on their investments.
The state is a major actor on the economic scene. It usually organizes and controls the largerst amount of political and military power and budgetary wealth.
A group can ignore the state and push their proposed policies, new forms of productive organization and non-elite distribution of social wealth, but your movement won't have much luck.
You will eventually have to contend over politicies, legal matters, and property "rights". And if your group has absolutely no access to state power, your group will lose.
My God, is there no place in the world safe from that phucking octapus?
His suction-cupped tenicles are tangling up the whole damn world. How can you have fair election when his CIA spooks and corporate contaminants are paying off people to dick up the election?
He stole two of them here at home, what makes us think he won't try to buy the election in Costa Rica?
Power corrupts. Absolute power corupts absolutely.
I've been checking google earth for a small island where I may never hear the name shrub again. St. Helena looks pretty nice and it's so remote maybe it hasn't been corrupted by big business yet. Maybe there's no mass media!
Oh to get away from this bloody nightmare, to just escape from the dark shadow of facsism!
If we don't kill this beast now, it will be ten times this size in a few years.
God help us!
Moonraven, please refrain from profanity. This is a civilized discussion. I lived in Costa Rica for most of the 90's and can assure everyone that they will reject CAFTA handily. They understand the negative consequences of corporatism and that CAFTA is merely a front for just that. They also despise Bush, and it was good that he opened his big mouth on this matter because that will only motivate more to vote against CAFTA. Pura Vida!
PJD,
I am exhausted right now but I'll try and answer your questions.
When many of the founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, talked about free trade they were envisioning a system with a minimalist government that did not interfere with trade or people's personal liberties. The present government, and indeed the government for a long while, has interfered with trade to the advantage of the corporation and the detriment of the average worker. The large corporations get government hand-outs all the time. They are, for the most part, on welfare. Through the years, with every president, Democratic and Republican alike, more and more of the income tax burden has fallen on the American people and less and less on the corporation. The income tax, itself, is illegal.
They ensure a market in other countries through waging wars. Much of this is done in secret, by wealthy bankers, behind closed doors, and the government makes decisions based on what they decide. If that's not government involvement, I don't know what is. They write legislation, like CAFTA, that hurts poor people and degrades the environment, while ensuring profit for the corporation.
Your reasoning is circular when you say "Such behavior by corporations is perfectly rational capitalist behavior in your wonderful free market system." This is NOT a free market system. They lie when they call it that. CAFTA and NAFTA have nothing to do with free trade. All this is a corporate take-over of America. That is why we are in the neo-fascist state we are in now.
You said "The only complicity of government is that they are deliberately dismantling their role of protecting the worker". America is not a socialist or communist country. The important thing was liberty, even if we never completely had it. We could have had it but the 20th century came along, and with it socialism and fascism. We never had a government that set wages, etc, until FDR did in the nineteen-forties. FDR only made the whole thing worse by taking the Fed and running with it. it was downright treasonous what he did. The American worker will never be free and America will never be free until they (the government) stops shoveling all our money into the, mostly, foreign European banks that are the Fed.
Does that answer your question?
Mr. Shays,
In what way is the Sanders description of Free Trade not such? In what way is government involved in corporate offshore outsourcing to undemocratic low wage countries? Such behavior by corporations is perfectly rational capitalist behavior in your wonderful free market system.
The only complicity of government is that they are deliberately dismantling their role of protecting the worker and small shop-owner from such rapacious behavior. Absent government, it would only be worse.
Don`t fall for it, Costa Ricans! This is a Canadian warning you. Ronald Reagan threatened us when the polls told our Prime Minister Mulroney that he would lose the election if he signed the US-Canada free trade deal. Reagan said: ``If Canada rejects this deal, the US will never be party to another treaty to improve trade with Canada.``
Canadians slunk to the polls and voted for Mulroney. Now look where we are today: a quarter of a million Canadians live on the streets; 1.2 Canadian children live in poverty; our university students should be able to pay off their student loans just as their own children are ready to enrol in university; our healthcare system has been stripped to the bone in preparation for hostile takeover by American HMOs. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Please, Costa Ricans, don`t make the same mistake we did. We were amply warned, but we didn`t listen. Please listen.
"Free trade is very good for the large multinational corporations who can throw American workers out on the street, move abroad to China and other low-wage countries, hire people there for pennies an hour, and bring their products back into this country."
-- Uh, no, Sen. Bernie Sanders. That is NOT free trade. That is the government sanctioned corporate take-over, neo-fascist state that America has become. Free trade means the government stays OUT of trade, by definition.
Read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. She describes exactly what is going on here and how Costa Rica is a CAFTA holdout because it is a democracy. However, the Friedmanites and their cronies are up to their old tricks. How many people will be "disappeared" this time in order to extend US hegemony?
Si votan SI, vaya con Dios porque lo vas a necesitar.
!Por favor, votan NO y mantenga sus derechas!
Brian, sorry if I come across as tedious by living up to my handle here, but most people don't know how "statistics" are done (and manipulated).
For example, in the US, we have about 300 million people. How many of those folks do you suppose have to be polled to get some sort of meaningful results? Most people are astounded to find that generally, only about 1,200 to 1,500 people have to be RANDOMLY chosen to participate. The results are usually qualified as to being accurate to + or - around 3%. Pretty impressive if correct, but those are the "norms" for research.
However, as I always warn my students: "Beware of statistics!!!" They are easily manipulated and are quite often presented in such a way (called "framing") as to totally change their true "conclusions". Hope this helps.
i have never been asked my opinion on one single political poll, ever. And ,for that fact, none of my friends have ever been ask for their opinion either. So when i see a poll saying that 90% of the population believes this or that i have to wonder who is getting polled. and when the media is owned by a handful of people (with many stock holders), i wonder if this handful of people may just be trying to sell me something or helping boost/crush certain stocks.
many of us US citizens stand with you, but don't look to see us on your tv set anytime soon, but we are there.