Report: Health Before Trade/Tobacco Out of the FTAA!

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 18:24:43 -0500

Dear Friends,

Last month, Essential Action, Latino Issues Forum - Tobacco-Free College
Campuses Project, San Francisco Tobacco-Free Coalition, Corpwatch, and
the American Lung Association of Florida sponsored a rally/press
conference in Miami in favor of excluding tobacco from the scope of the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Miami police have apparently deemed tobacco control advocates a
potential threat to public safety, as our small and entirely peaceful
event was heavily monitored by law enforcement, on the ground and by
air. Meanwhile, representatives of the tobacco industry -- which kills
over 1 million people throughout the Americas annually -- were meeting
with FTAA delegates at the police-protected Americas Business Forum. The
irony was a bit hard to miss!

For more details and photos, check out the report below.

*********************************************
HEALTH BEFORE TRADE: TOBACCO OUT OF THE FTAA!
         Rally/Press Conference
     November 18, 2003 ~ Miami, Florida
*********************************************

Tobacco is a product like no other, in that it kills if used as
intended. On November 20-21, 2003, trade representatives of the U.S. and
33 other countries throughout the Americas met in Miami, FL to continue
negotiations of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The stated
purpose of the FTAA is to increase trade and investment between
countries in the region. But when it comes to tobacco, more trade = less
health! The FTAA poses a major threat to efforts to protect the lives
and lungs of people throughout the Americas from profit-hungry tobacco
corporations. The best way to avoid this threat would be to exclude
tobacco from the scope of the FTAA!

To this end, Essential Action, Latino Issues Forum - Tobacco-Free
College Campuses Project, San Francisco Tobacco-Free Coalition,
Corpwatch, and the American Lung Association of Florida sponsored a
rally/press conference at the Torch of Friendship in Miami to bring
attention to the issue.

POLICE PREVENT INFLATION OF "FTAA PACK OF LIES"

The backdrop and key visual for our rally/press conference was to be a
13+ foot high inflatable cigarette pack with the message "FTAA Pack of
Lies."  Unfortunately, soon after we arrived to the event site, the
police informed us that we would not be allowed to use our generator,
which they claimed was a "threat to public safety."  Failure to remove
the generator, they warned, would result in the revocation of our event
permit.  They did not seem similarly concerned about the open flame
coming out of the Torch of Friendship.

So we had to make due with a somewhat less dramatic visual: laying the
deflated cigarette pack on the steps in front of us. See photos:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/imclotus.jpg
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/packoflies.jpg

SPEAKERS CALL FOR EXCLUSION OF TOBACCO FROM FTAA

Robert Weissman, Co-Director of Essential Action, opened the press
conference with an overview of the issue, and unveiled a new Essential
Action paper "International Trade Agreements and Tobacco Control:
Threats to Public Health and the Case for Excluding Tobacco from Trade
Agreements."
View photo:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/robreport.jpg
View pdf version of paper:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/trade/tobacco.trade.v02.backgrd.pdf

Anna White, Coordinator of Essential Action's Global Partnerships for
Tobacco Control program, released a letter to FTAA delegates from nearly
30 organizations in 11 countries throughout the Americas -- including
the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, American Heart
Association, and Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids -- in favor of excluding
tobacco from the scope of the FTAA.
View photo:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/anna.jpg
View letter:
English: http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/trade/letter.html
Spanish: http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/trade/letter_es.html

Judy Wilkenfeld, Director of International Programs at the Campaign for
Tobacco Free Kids described a last minute decision by the Bush
Administration to include tobacco in a free trade agreement between the
U.S. and Chile.
View photo:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/judy.jpg
Read more about this example:
http://tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=582
Read statement issued by the Campaign on tobacco and the FTAA:
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=710

Christina Reyes, Coordinator of the Latino Issues Forum - Tobacco-Free
College Campuses Project, also spoke, as did several students involved
in the project. Students held signs like "Health Before Trade: Tobacco
Out of the FTAA!" and "Tobacco: More Trade = Less Health!"
View photo:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/signs.jpg

SKIT HIGHLIGHTS HOW USTR TREATS TOBACCO JUST LIKE ANY OTHER COMMODITY

Students involved with the Latino Issues Forum - Tobacco-Free College
Campuses Project then did a skit to highlight how international trade
agreements fail to acknowledge the uniquely lethal nature of tobacco.
The skit began with USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) and NAFTA (North
American Free Trade Agreement) welcoming FTAA into their ranks. The
chained-together "trade before health" trio then proceeded to
enthusiastically greet various commodities, making no distinction
between Coffee, Bananas, Corn, and Tobacco, aka Death. View photos:

Problem: international trade agreements treat all commodities the
same...
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/commodities.jpg

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick shakes hand with Tobacco, aka
Death
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/zoellick.jpg

DIE-IN DRAMATIZES DEATHS IN THE AMERICAS CAUSED BY PUTTING "TRADE BEFORE
HEALTH"

Tobacco already kills over 1 million people annually in the Americas.
While smoking rates are going down in the U.S., they are on the rise in
Latin America. If trade negotiators fail to exclude tobacco from the
FTAA, the tobacco industry will gain a new and dangerous tool for
challenging effective tobacco control legislation in the region. And
when the tobacco industry gets what it wants, more people die. Our event
concluded with a dramatization of the human impact of an FTAA that fails
to exclude tobacco. As the names of countries in the Americas were read,
participants wearing signs with these names and the message "KILLED BY
TOBACCO"/"MATADO POR EL TOBACO" fell to the ground around the deflated
"FTAA Pack of Lies" and symbolically died -- visually countering the lie
that tobacco is just like any other commodity and should be treated as
such. View photos:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/diein4.jpg
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/imclotus2.jpg
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/killed.jpg

LINKS TO MORE PHOTOS

A Reuters photo of the event:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/031118/ids_photos_ts/r2787550594.jpg

...and some photos we took in front of a Miami-FTAA 2003 banner, with
the Hotel Intercontinental (location of negotiations) in background...

"Health Before Trade: Tobacco Out of the FTAA!" sign featuring a crossed
out Marlboro Man
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/tobaccoout.jpg

Miniature "FTAA Pack of Lies" poster
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/packoflies2s.jpg

All photos of the event are online at:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/

TOBACCO CONTROL ADVOCATES: A THREAT TO "HOMELAND SECURITY"?

With $8.5 million in federal funding (part of the $87 billion Iraq
appropriations bill), Miami had not spared any expense for "security"
surrounding the FTAA Ministerial. Although there were only 15 or so
people involved in our press conference and the policeman who issued us
our permit had acknowledged that it sounded "low-key", a helicopter
hovered above us for the duration of our event. Many of the police took
a hostile attitude towards us, with one even saying to his colleagues,
in close earshot to us, "Let's go f*** 'em up." A Florida college
student who came to photograph the event had her car destroyed by
police, who mistook a canister of paint in it for a bomb. And after the
event, two men wearing FTAA badges sat in a car nearby and filmed us as
we packed up our stuff. When confronted, they refused to tell us what
branch of law enforcement they worked for.*

When it came to news coverage, it was hard for our tobacco control event
to compete with the militarization of Miami. Even though the Miami
Herald sent both a reporter and a photographer to our event, the only
mention of it in the paper the next day was in an article about the
Florida student's car being destroyed by police.  It was noted that she
had been attending an "anti-tobacco protest." Read the article:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/7306188.htm

* We thought it only fair to take a few photos ourselves. Check out the
two undercover cameramen:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/cameramen.jpg
& their car:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/photos/ftaa2003/miami005.jpg