Trade > RC's History in the Trade Movement

A New Season for Our Coalition
by Lorette Picciano, Executive Director

In 1992, seeking to discern what the North American Free Trade Agreement would mean for us, our Coalition crossed the Rio Grande, deciding forever that borders would never define us. When our Coalition returned to Chihuahua, Mexico in 1999, we celebrated our diversity and shared values, recognizing our voice was still small in the face of the global forces affecting our communities.

We were heartened during the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle to find many other small and persistent groups from across the globe who share our journey, our values, our principles. Our goal of securing a place for poor people at the global economic and political systems table no longer seems so implausible.

To proceed, however, our political solidarity would need to be coupled with, and in the longer term, supported by, economic cooperation. The alternative people-to-people trade network we pledged to build in 1992 blossomed by 1999 into a people's "SuperMarket," the foundation for economic cooperation among our Members. The electronic network that gave the SuperMarket wings would also equip our geographically disparate and isolated Members with a new infrastructure and motivation for renewed civic engagement.

Our Coalition can now-with 21st century tools and perennial persistence-aggregate the political as well as economic power we need to make a difference for the communities and people who are the Rural Coalition.

On a September afternoon more than seven years ago, the Rural Coalition began its in-depth inquiry into globalization and trade.

Earlier that year, our Board considered the site for our next Assembly, the most important event in the life of our Coalition. Our decision was sealed the moment our sister, Patricia Bellanger of the American Indian Movement, observed "We need to go down to the border in El Paso and find out what this "NAFTA" (North American Free Trade Agreement) is going to do to Carlos (Marentes) and the people there."

What was the real intent underlying NAFTA? What would it and other global agreements mean for our communities? How could we respond?

1992 Assembly-El Paso-Chihuahua
"I guess we won't be able to grow corn anymore."
By September, Pat's Assembly vision was a reality. Our Coalition gathered in El Paso from distant points as far away as El Salvador. We crossed across the Rio Grande, boarded school buses, and were now sitting in a tiny classroom on a dusty ejido (cooperative) in rural Chihuahua.

The Federation of Southern Cooperative's delegation of African American farmers had arrived by van the night before from Alabama and Mississippi. They and the other farmers present proceeded to assess the impact of NAFTA. Translating English to Spanish and acres to hectors, they did the math as farmers do, arriving swiftly at their conclusion: the cost of producing maize, or corn, was markedly lower in the U.S. than in Mexico.

"What, then, will NAFTA mean to you," the ejido leaders, whose economy was based entirely on maize, were asked? Like a death sentence, the reality of free trade hit: "I guess we won't be able to grow corn anymore," they concluded bravely.

Shared Values
At a wonderful feast at the larger Ejido Benito Juarez, our cooperative Members from the U.S. conducted their own inquiry: "How do your ejidos operate? What is their governance structure?" The campesinos answered "one member, one vote" to affirming nods, verifying they shared the central principle of the democratically organized cooperatives in the rural south.

Later in the day, in the stories and freedom songs of the movement north of the border, our new Members in Mexico had a revelation of their own: there were poor people, "just like us" from the wealthy side of the border. Their challenges were similar, their values and desire to be connected to land and community, el mismo (the same). Our Coalition had just forged the link that transformed its work in the last decade of the century.

On the bridge back to El Paso, we left behind any border that may have existed in our Coalition. We signed an agreement, not opposing trade, but pledging mutual support in the face of trade agreements constructed by and for the powerful. Faced with growing debt and isolation as devastating to our communities as any drought or hurricane, our Members made one further pact: to create an economic structure-our own people to people alternative NAFTA. Marginalized, we were compelled to secure the economic survival of our communities.

Democratic Participation
The next evening, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, once and future candidate whom most believe was the real winner of the fraudulent 1988 Mexican presidential election, urged our small band of activists to keep seeking justice and real participation.

At three AM, we poured out into the dark streets of El Paso, where farmworkers slept on cardboard awaiting labor contractors and jobs. The workers, heartened by the circle of witnesses from so many places, in turn strengthened our mutual resolve to address the system rife with injustices faced by farmworkers across the land. We pledged also to support these harvesters of chili peppers in their more immediate goal--building a place of their own, a safe center for their community, here at the border.

At the Assembly's end, we elected the farmworker's leader, Carlos Marentes, as our Chairperson. Our outgoing Chair, Hubert Sapp, planted one more seed for future harvest: He invited the Coalition to hold our next Assembly in the U.S. South, to connect and nurture links with the civil rights movement and the struggles of all people on the land.

• In 1993, our Coalition opposed NAFTA on both sides of the border. We welcomed a U.S. Congressional delegation to Chihuahua, so the "congresistas," including Reps. John Conyers and Bernie Sanders, could see NAFTA's impact in rural Mexico. Our leaders there, including Victor Quintana of our Member group, the Frente Democrático Campesino, later testified in the U.S. Congress.
• In a later meeting with US farmers, a Senator of a progressive bent revealed more truth about trade. "You must support NAFTA!" he implored. "We project you will gain 6 cents on a bushel of corn." "For six cents on a bushel of corn, we will wipe out our neighbor's communities?" we asked aghast, remembering our brothers and sisters on the ejido. "Yes, you must, for if not, you will fail instead," the Senator replied darkly.
• The US Congress ratified NAFTA in November 1993. On NAFTA's inauguration day, January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico began an uprising which was soon, and continues to be, brutally suppressed. Victor Quintana in 1994 recounted the shock felt across the continent "when these peasants from the most abandoned place in México shouted 'NAFTA is the death sentence for the indigenous people.'...The uprising could easily have been averted had policy makers listened to what our Coalition and others had been telling them." He continued: "...social peace in México will only be established if the agreement negotiated by the powerful...is transformed into an agreement that provides the majority of our three countries with jobs, corn, beans, food and a more dignified life for all."
• Our Assemblies in South Carolina (1994), Window Rock, Arizona (1995), and Vermont (1997), focused on democratic participation, equal access to public resources, and economic cooperation among our own communities. (The stories of these events are recounted in our earlier annual reports and the unabridged version of this article.)
• Our many years of effort to combat discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture bore fruit in a landmark class action lawsuit by Black farmers settled in early 1999. Many farmers still await justice and USDA remains resistant to change, although we have found within "the system" more allies willing to help small farmers succeed. With their support, the minority farm registry, advocated for two decades by our Members and our current Chairperson, John Zippert, was finally approved in May 2000.

Creel, Chihuahua
1999 Food 'n Justice
In September, we were welcomed once more in El Paso, this time at the Center the Border Agricultural Workers opened in 1995. We boarded buses and departed for our 1999 Assembly, once again in Chihuahua. Deep in the mountains, the Rarámuri people and the campesinos welcomed us like the old friends we have become. We stood in solidarity on local issues. We initiated our new campaign for a more just food system during our closing farmers' rally in Cuauhtémoc.

This Assembly, led by our Board members Chilo Villarreal and Mario Vázquez, celebrated our seven-year cycle of renewal. A stronger Coalition emerged, more closely tied to the indigenous community which hosted us, and our now 16 Member groups in Mexico.

The torch of leadership passed from Carlos Marentes, our dedicated Chair these past seven years, who more than anyone bridged the border and with great patience and kindness built new solidarity; to John Zippert, who long ago helped dream and found our Coalition and who steadfastly, for more than two decades, willed us past every boulder in our path. Long time leader Georgia Good accepted the role of Vice chairperson from Marge Townsend. All four agreed to remain in our leadership, joined by our new Secretary, Greg Smitman of the Intertribal Agriculture Council.

They, with the rest of the strong and vibrant Board our Members elected, will lead our Coalition into a new millennium and phase of our work. We are poised to make our e-commerce SuperMarket project a reality for the many small communities who comprise our Members.

Democracy as a Trade Barrier
In Seattle late in 1999, we joined sister communities from across the globe to create a seat at the table for the voice of the people during the World Trade Organization conclave. We were heartened to learn we had all reached the same conclusion: WTO has got to go!

For many years, corporations have sought exemption from laws which localities, states, nations and international bodies have secured to protect the rights of people and the earth. To them, democracy is the primary barrier to full freedom for capital and the inalienable rights of corporate investors. Trade agreements like WTO allow them to appeal these restrictions to some higher, "rational" corporate-controlled authority. In WTO, they have created one small, supremely powerful, committee of people who would make or reject rules for the entire planet.

Growing networks of citizens are not willing to cede their right of democratic participation to such a body. Among rural people with a strong spiritual base is the clear conviction that the next higher authority would not favor such domination over people and the land. In this millennium it will be our shared task to now reclaim the land, the economic base and the political power that should be the people's own.

Our Coalition is small, our political voice limited. We cannot alone, without our sister movements across the hemisphere and the globe, repeal NAFTA or WTO, or even reform U.S. farm policy to support small farmers. We can, for our Members, serve as a beacon to guide our Coalition's journey. We can enhance our own infrastructure and capacity, gather allies, and cooperate to build our small alternative NAFTA to improve the lives of those close to us.

Our hope for Food 'n Justice and a better future for our communities is reaffirmed in knowing that no matter how harsh a winter or devastating a flood or drought we face, spring remains eternal.

We plow, we plant, we pray. When we harvest, we offer thanks, share our abundance with each other, and continue to widen our circle. Bit by bit, we fortify our own little part of the growing global civic network where our voices are magnified in the shared call of communities across the planet who are more like us than not. Echoing Quintana, our message is simply Jobs, corn, beans, food, and a more dignified life for all!