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Media Release: October
18, 2004
Contact: Amelia Simpson, (619) 235-0281
EHC
report documents NAFTA impacts
on border region
Congressman Bob Filner joins EHC at rally for fair trade
(San Diego, California)
18 October 2004 – At a rally today at Federal Plaza, San Diego-based
Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) and its Tijuana affiliate, the
Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental, released a report documenting
the impacts of ten years of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) at the San Diego/Tijuana border. Joined by Congressman Bob Filner,
California State Senator Liz Figueroa and other speakers, EHC called
for a halt to expanding the NAFTA model throughout the hemisphere, including
in the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement
(DR-CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which covers
34 countries in the Americas.
“Those of us living
in the San Diego/Tijuana border region have seen NAFTA’s promises broken,”
stated Congressman Filner. “At its ten-year anniversary, the verdict
on NAFTA is in: it is an economic, social, and environmental failure!”
“Our report, Globalization
at the Crossroads, shows increasing economic instability, poverty, worker
and environmental injustice during the ten years that NAFTA has been
in effect,” said Diane Takvorian, EHC’s Executive Director. “We must
take a stand now against the NAFTA model of trade, in order to stop
the pattern of corporate globalization that sentences our planet to
pollution, disease and social conflict driven by extreme poverty and
injustice.”
DR-CAFTA could be
sent to the U.S. Congress for a vote in a possible post-election “lame
duck” session. “Our local Congresswoman Susan Davis over and over again
has declined to oppose expanding NAFTA,” declared Amelia Simpson, Director
of EHC’s Border Environmental Justice Campaign. “Over 140,000 residents
of San Diego and Tijuana have joined EHC’s Fair Trade Campaign calling
for Congress to vote NO on expanding the failed NAFTA model. As we stand
here, that tally is going up. The pressure is on our elected officials
to stand up for labor, the environment and democracy.”
Globalization at
the Crossroads highlights the TV manufacturing industry as an example
of corporate globalization. Tijuana became the “TV Capital of the World”
under NAFTA. Most TVs in the U.S. today were assembled in Mexico’s maquiladora
plants. Full-time maquiladora workers in Tijuana live in squatters settlements
without running water, electricity, sewage or garbage service.
In San Diego, low-paying
service jobs grew by almost a quarter of a million during NAFTA, as
the manufacturing base continues to shrink and white-collar jobs are
outsourced. During NAFTA 4,100 information technology jobs left San
Diego for other countries.
The landmark case
of the abandoned maquiladora Metales y Derivados next to Tijuana’s Colonia
Chilpancingo establishes the failure of NAFTA to protect the environment.
Community residents and EHC filed a petition under NAFTA for cleanup
of the dangerous site where the owner, San Diegan José Kahn,
left behind 23,000 tons of toxic waste, including lead and arsenic.
After four years, the NAFTA environmental commission determined that
the site represents a “grave risk to human health,” yet with no enforcement
mechanism, no cleanup resulted.
Community organizing
and advocacy led to a victory in June 2004, when the Mexican government
signed an agreement with community residents for citizen oversight of
a 5-year comprehensive cleanup plan. But with only 10% of the funds
needed for the project designated, Metales y Derivados also demonstrates
NAFTA’s failure to provide resources to compensate for Mexico’s disproportionate
burden of the environmental impacts of trade.
“Metales y Derivados
is next to my neighborhood, just a mile from the border,” said Lourdes
Luján, a Colectivo organizer and resident of Colonia Chilpancingo.
“I’ve lived there all my life. With NAFTA, everything changed. Our children
are poisoned with lead, and lead damage is irreversible! NAFTA brought
the maquiladoras, but didn’t protect the public and hold corporations
responsible. Kahn continues to run a profitable business in San Diego,
while we’re exposed to the toxics he illegally dumped next to Colonia
Chilpancingo, where thousands of us live. That’s not right.”
EHC’s report recommends
that 5 principles be incorporated into all trade agreements: enforceable
environmental protections, International Labor Organization standards,
legal priority of international and national laws over trade rules that
protect investors, democratic negotiation and administration of trade
agreements and resources to reduce inequality between signatory nations.
Speakers:
From Environmental Health Coalition:
Diane Takvorian (Executive Director), Amelia Simpson (Director, Border
Environmental Justice Campaign), Lourdes Luján (Community Activist
with EHC’s Tijuana Affiliate, the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia
Ambiental)
Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA)
Senator Liz Figueroa, Chair, California Senate Select
Committee on International Trade Policy and State Legislation
Jerry Butkiewicz, Secretary-Treasurer, San Diego-Imperial
Counties Labor Council
Carmen Valadez, Labor and Women’s Rights Activist,
Colectiva Feminista Binacional
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Environmental Health Coalition is dedicated to environmental
and social justice. We believe that justice is achieved when empowered
communities act together to make social change. We organize and advocate
to protect public health and the environment threatened by toxic pollution.
EHC supports efforts that create a just society and that foster a healthy
and sustainable quality of life.
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