NAFTA a form of
‘economic colonialism
says Mexican legislator

Multinational corporations are
against all social policies and social
democratic ideals and are threatening
to destroy Mexico’s sovereignty said
Jorge Calderon Salazar, a federal mem-
ber of the Mexican parliament and a
member of the Revolutionary Demo-
cratic Party (PRD).

Mr. Calderon, an outspoken oppo-
nent of the impending North Ameri-
can Free Trade Agreement, was visit-
ing Vancouver in late January, on
invitation from the B.C, Working
Group Against Free Trade and the
Action Canada Network.

Mr. Calderon, an elected represen-
tative from Mexico City, also said
that the ruling PRI party, led by
President Carlos Salinas Gortani, was
fraudulently elected in 1988 and has
no legal right to negotiate such an
agreement which will further exploit
Mexican workers.

He said that the Mexican govern-
ment has used repression and elec-
toral fraud against the country’s peo-
ple to thwart democratic movements
and internal movements of workers
against his policies.

Most importantly, Mr. Calderon
says that workers and popular move-
ments across North America must
join to demand the defeat of NAFTA,
whose first draft will be ready in early
1992.

He said the PRD, like the New
Democrats and Liberals in Canada,
and the Democratic Party in the
US.A., has been totally left out in the
dark as fast-track negotiations are
steamrolling the NAFTA.

“This contact with Canadian peo-
ple helps us to fight together against
such a trade deal,” said Calderon in an
exclusive interview with the
Lumberworker. “Bush, Mulroney and
Salinas want to sign the deal before
Canadians realize what its meaning
is.

Mr. Calderon has a good idea of
what it means for workers in his coun-
try. He says that the NAFTA is simply
a form of “economic colonialism”
imposed by U.S.A. which is a model of
economic development which will

exclude over 80%
population.

“The corporations are trying to use
the Mexican unemployed to push
wages down and destroy social prog-
ress in North America. It will be a
process where the environment will be
destroyed and the health of Mexico
workers will be destroyed.”

Calderon, a professor of economics
of: the National School of Economics
at University of Mexico, says neo-
liberal policies of massive debt repay-
ment and the sell-out of Mexican
equity to U.S. banks, were precursors
of the NAFTA.

In the 1980's the average Mexican
workers’ real wages fell by 60-65%
while unemployment grew.

Even with the advent of
Maquiladora free trade zone along the
USS. - Mexican border, Calderon said
Mexican workers lost 25% of the
National income to upper classes in
an 8 year period during the 1980's.

“It was like stealing from the poor
to give to the rich,” commented Cal-
deron. “A wealth transfer of 25% of
National income in such a brief period
is staggering.”

of Mexico's

The NAFTA is a
model of development

which will exclude
over 80% of Mexico’s
population

“Tf the capital of multi-national cor-
porations comes into Mexico, it’s not
for the benefits of Mexico, it’s to take
money for the multi-nationals.”

Calderon says that Mexican work-
ers find it impossible to live on wages
of between $4-5.00/day and that “the
only way to live is destroying the
health and losing the most fundamen-
tal civil and human rights.”

© Mexican MP Jorge Calderon Salazar says the main supporters of the NAFTA are
37 multinational corporations which control 20% of Mexico's GNP.

Mexican unions, he said, are not~

elected but are rather imposed on
workers to protect the rights of
corporations.

“Labour unions in Mexico are, by
the most part, under the central con-
trol of government, much like in Italy
in the Mussolini era,” said Calderon.
“It’s incredible that, at the end of the
20th century, this happens. Workers

_ have no right to effect their union.”

He also said the main supporters of
the deal in Mexico are 37 multi-
national companies which provide the
NAFTA’s strongest lobby and control
over 20% of the nation’s gross national
product.

But he says there is large opposi-
tion to the deal from private and
middle size agricultural business,
small and medium sized businesses
and some big businesses as well.

Calderon said that one of the larg-
est threats looming against the Mexi-
can economy is the increase in imports
of heavily subsidized U.S. grains such
as corn and wheat.

He says Mexico is finding it impos-
sible to compete with U.S. subsidized
agricultural products which dump on
the Mexican market, adding to inter-
nal unemployment losses in the coun-

try and increasing its trade balance
deficit by $11-12 billion annually.

To compensate for the immense
trade imbalance and deficit payments,
Calderon says “Mexico is selling off
state enterprises and raw resources.”

“We are selling to service the trade
deficit, what Mexicans, during gener-
ations of struggle, have built up.”

“The (government's) technocrats are
cynically saying that if we sign the
NAFTA, that by the end of the cen-
tury, investment of multi-national cap-
ital in the economy will eventually
pay off the deficit.” .

Calderon said that the U.S. domi-
nated International Monetary Fund
and World Bank is helping the Sali-
nas government implement the
NAFTA by agreeing to reduce levels of
debt repayment when the agreement
is first present, and then increase
payment levels in 1995-96.

In order to facilitate foreign take-
overs of Mexican land holding by
multi-national agri-business, in
December of last year the PRI
amended Mexico’s 1917 Constitution.
The new amendments will allow for-
eign interest to buy lands from rural
community and reconcentrate land
ownership.

MacMillan Bloedel’s
Labour Relations Director
Peter Lawrie (left)
expresses gratitude to
Federal Labour Minister
Marcel Danis who recently
gave the Disabled Forestry
Workers Foundation of
Canada a cheque for
$45,000. The money will
be used by the Foundation
to present a workshop at
this month’s INDEPEN-
DENCE ’92, an Interna-
tional Congress and Expo-
sition on Disability to be

April 22-26. To Mr.
Lawrie’s left is Marcel
Danis, Wolfgang Zimmer-
man, an executive director
of the Foundation and
Brian Payne of the
Canadian Paperworkers
Union.

16/LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 1992

held in Vancouver between