Make a Run for the Border, Eh?

by J. Lawrence Scholer

May has brought sizzling temperatures to Hanover. Students have stepped into their sandals, slipped on shorts, and marched to the Green to play a game of catch or to bask in the sun. But, while students may be happy to improve their tans, others are not so eager. Could this unseasonable warmth be the result of global warming? Some students were curious. They went to Canada for answers.

On April 21, seven Dartmouth students trekked northward up I-89 to protest the Summit of the Americas which was being held in Quebec City. The Dartmouth students protested because of concerns about the effects of inter-continental free trade on human rights and the environment. Djahane Salehabadi ’01 and Eric Smillie ’02 organized the trip.

Thirty-four democratic nations attended the summit, which sought to formulate plans for free trade in the Western hemisphere.

The Dartmouth protestors never made it into Canada, instead joining a peaceful protest at the Vermont—Canada border. "We checked the newspapers that day and had seen news reports the night before," said Matt Jones ’02, who attended the protest because of the possible environmental effects of the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas. "It looked like far too chaotic a scene."

Unlike the scene in Quebec City, no violence erupted at the border. Canadian Mounted Police arrested over 100 protestors on the night of April 20 in Quebec City, when protestors tried to surge through protective barriers.

"There was never any threat of conflict," said Jones. He did concede that security was high at the welcome center as police tried to prevent even the threat of violence. "As you pulled in [to the welcome center], there was a cop flagging everybody down before you even got to the building," said Jones. "There was another cop there with a video camera taping everybody—cars that went in—and the cop slowed everybody down so he could get the backside of your car."

The border patrol surrounded the protestors on the north and south. They stood ready with dogs and rifles.

The protestors criticized the Conference for playing favorites with large, international corporations. Smillie told the Daily Dartmouth, "[The conference] gives [corporations] ways to increase their profit margins while making things harder for people in many countries, both in the third- and first-world."

Matt Jones, while sympathizing with the human rights protestors’ cause, had strong feelings concerning the environment, even though President George W. Bush has said that he will include environmental regulations in the agreement. "[Bush] has just recently agreed to have considerations be a part of the agreement or the review process," he said. "Before that, he wasn’t even thinking about it. It’s doubtful he still is. He’s ignored the Kyoto protocol of 1997—ignoring greenhouse gases despite their obvious affect on our environment. We have an eighty degree day on May 2."

Jones pointed out that he is not directly attributing the unusual heat to the greenhouse effect, but he notes that such phenomena are a "rising trend." He did not consider the snow that remained on the ground for an unusually long period of time, or the bodies of water in the Hanover area that are still iced over as precursors to a coming Ice Age.

In a recent letter to the Daily Dartmouth, Jones criticized Bush for restricting the free trade agreement to countries with a democratic government. Cuba and Haiti were not invited to the summit. Jones went on to say in his letter, "[Bush] overlooked the small fact that we do not currently have a democratic government."

Jones believes that corporations control this country. "The details of the FTAA agreement have only been released to corporations. If this was really a democracy it would have been released," he said. It is something that is going to affect us all. We don’t know exactly what it is." According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the U.S. is a "modern democracy."

Jones and many of the other protestors were not protesting free trade proper, but the exploitation of weaker countries by large corporations. According to Jones, this exploitation often harms the environment. "These [smaller] governments don’t have the kind of research capability that the United States has. And, even if they research it and if these chemicals that certain plants are producing are toxic, there’s no way to shut it off. It’s just going to be expropriation of profit."

Jones concedes that "trade is inevitable," but he disagrees with the method the FTAA will go about it. "Starting it off with a foundation of corporation rules, it’s not going to work," he said. "You’ve got to lay down a groundwork of environmental legislation to protect those countries."

Only Brazil and Venezuela have voiced concerns over the agreement.

The peaceful protests at the border did not garner nearly as much attention as the violent protests around Quebec City. Salehabadi told the Daily Dartmouth that the media seemed to focus on the violent protestors. Jones agreed. "The most extreme [protestors] were the anarchists," he said. "They were the ones inciting the violence. They were the ones who got the most media attention."

Groups like the Sierra Club worried that attention was being drawn away from their protests by constant television coverage of violent protests.

The violence in Quebec subsided on Saturday, after a frenetic Friday. The demonstrators on Saturday were for the most part older than Friday’s violent demonstrators. Saturday, however, was not without incident as there were several instances of stone-throwing. Police used tear gas to break up the activity.

On Saturday, April 21, President Bush spoke to the leaders at the conference and said that it was time to "build an age of prosperity in a hemisphere of liberty." In his 13 minute speech, Bush said that "a free trade agreement focuses on commerce." However, he did try to reach out to the protestors, saying that he would only negotiate the FTAA if it contained "a strong commitment to protecting our environment and improving labor standards."

Many Republican leaders disapproved of Bush’s stance on environmental and labor standards in the trade agreement. They see labor and the environment as having no place in such agreements, believing they will inhibit commerce.

Bush has not named many specific standards, but he has named some. Bush’s budget allocates $30 million to the Tropical Forest Conservation Act. The act helps countries redirect debt payment toward projects that will protect biodiversity and tropical forests. Bush said he will commit $10 million to fund teacher training in the Caribbean, the Andes, and Central America. Also, Bush favors a system which would levy fines, instead of trade sanctions, on nations whose treatment of workers was below international standards or nations which committed environmental offenses.

Bush stressed the benefits of free trade on participating countries. "Free and open trade creates new jobs and new income. It lifts the lives of all our people, applying the power of markets to the needs of the poor. It spurs the process of economic and legal reform. And open trade reinforces the habit of liberty."

The member states agreed to complete the accord and submit it to national legislatures for approval in 2005. Brazil’s resistance caused an extension of the deadline for the agreement.

The Summit wrapped up on Sunday, April 22. All 34 nations agreed to the date in 2005. All 7 protestors from Dartmouth returned from the border to Hanover safely.