If you didn't know some a**holes are going to come to Downtown Miami next week and cause some trouble. Expect traffic and s*** and they want to ruin our city.

Let these motherf***ers know what you think

 

legal@stoptheftaa.org

Of course it would help to let people know what exactly these protests are and what the FTAA actually is.

 

So let me shed some light.

 

 

The FTAA is Free Trade Area of the Americas.

 

What it entails is this: The effort to unite the economies of the Americas into a single free trade area began at the Summit of the Americas, which was held in December 1994 in Miami, U.S.A. The Heads of State and Government of the 34 democracies in the region agreed to construct a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, in which barriers to trade and investment will be progressively eliminated. They agreed to complete negotiations towards this agreement by the year 2005 and to achieve substantial progress toward building the FTAA by 2000. The Heads of State and Government further directed their ministers responsible for trade to take a series of concrete initial steps to achieve the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Their decisions regarding these steps are contained in the Miami Summit's Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action.

 

 

During the preparatory phase (1994-1998), the 34 Ministers responsible for trade established twelve working groups to identify and examine existing trade-related measures in each area, with a view to identifying possible approaches to negotiations. The results of the preparatory work of the Groups were made available to the public. Four ministerial meetings took place during this preparatory phase: the first was in June 1995 in Denver, U.S.A., the second in March 1996 in Cartagena, Colombia, the third in May 1997 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and the fourth in March 1998 in San Jos?, Costa Rica.

 

 

In the San Jos? Declaration, the Ministers set out the structure of the negotiations, agreed upon general principles and objectives to guide these negotiations, and recommended that their Heads of State and Government initiate the formal negotiation of the FTAA. The General Principles and Objectives agreed to by the Ministers are listed in Annex I of the Declaration.

 

 

The FTAA negotiations were formally launched in April 1998 at the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile. The Heads of State and Government participating in the Second Summit of the Americas agreed that the FTAA Agreement will be balanced, comprehensive, WTO-consistent, and will constitute a single undertaking. They also agreed that the negotiating process will be transparent and take into account the differences in the levels of development and size of the economies in the Americas in order to facilitate full participation by all countries. Furthermore, they agreed that the negotiations should proceed in order to contribute to raising living standards, improving working conditions of all people in the Americas, and better protecting the environment. Finally, they agreed upon a structure under which the negotiations would be conducted.

 

This is the process through which the FTAA was formed.

 

More information can be found here:

 

http://www.ftaa-alca.org/alca_e.asp

hell yeh riot!! im going down there with my cubano friends.!!