CÚPULA DA AMÉRICA LATINA E DO CARIBE SOBRE ... - Funag

INTERVENÇÕES (VERSÃO ORIGINAL)
be devised. So as it is in biology, it is in politics. I would therefore like to
endorse the suggestion by the Prime Minister of Jamaica for a specific group
to be tasked with working out specific modalities under the guidance and
suzerainty, in the interim, of the Rio Group.
If we indeed must work together and resolve our differences within this
organic whole, it is necessary that we give cognizance to those differences
and try to provide a framework for their resolution. Take the example of my
country and that of Saint Lucia, which is represented here. Dominica is not
represented, Jamaica, Dominica is represented, yes, Jamaica, Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines, we are banana producing countries. When the train left
the station on organized trade liberalization in 1994 and 1995 with the creation
of the WTO, subsequent events occurred in Europe by which the protective
regime for the banana industry was subverted by the rules of trade liberalization.
At no time was there a serious meeting at the political level between Ecuador,
Costa Rica, other banana producing countries in Latin America and those in
the Caribbean. Indeed, some Latin Countries in waging a war against the
trade regime, which Europe had put together, indirectly and indeed, in some
cases, directly cause immense damage to countries like Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines. So, we have had these differences, and as we gather here more
challenges have been mounted to the remnants of the protective regime for
bananas. But surely minor producers like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
deserve a place in the international system, and if all our own Latin brothers
and sisters work with the United Sates to undermine the efficacy of the
production system in our own countries, all we do is speak integration without
acting on it.
Surely, the peasant farmer on the hillsides and in the valleys of Saint Vincent
and in Saint Lucia and in Dominica and in Grenada must have a place in the
international trading system and what we produce is essentially diminutive,
small, insignificant in any global sense. I therefore ask my brothers and sisters
in Latin America and Central America to provide a special role, a niche, for
our bananas to be accommodated. The decimation in rural communities has
been immense. In 1993, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines exported US$
120 million dollars worth of bananas; last year we exported under US$ 20
million. And there are no proper alternatives during the transition period, only
increased immiseration of the poor and degradation of the rural economy. I
think this is a question that has to be put forth here. And when the rules are
drawn up clearly there must be an acceptance of an older, statist principle:
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