Version imprimableWe are going through a complete crisis that threatens life in all its forms. The COVID-19 has become a pandemic at a time when the capitalist crisis is intensifying and the economic clout is repeatedly trying to make the working class bear the onus of recomposing the corporate profit rate. This coincides with the weakening of the health systems, the deterioration of living conditions and the destruction of the public sector as a result of the neoliberal shift. The asphyxiation to which we are being subjected by the foreign debt, international organisations and the permanent oppression of imperialism against our sovereignty is leading to a scenario with very serious consequences.
In an America where we refuse to accept structural adjustments and the imposition of new imperialist policies, and where our peoples have first hand experiences of important popular uprisings in recent months, the pandemic has become a pretext to legitimize the presence of the armed forces on our territories and to implement adjustment measures and the deterioration of the living conditions of the working class. Likewise, this crisis has once again revealed the brutality of patriarchal violence against women and sexual dissidents, as well as the historical exclusion of indigenous peoples and people of African descent, who are forced to face the pandemic in conditions of extreme vulnerability.
In the best tradition of our people, we are the organizations of the people, workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, feminists, Afro-descendants, piqueteras/ros and neighbours, who are putting their bodies, heads and hearts to work out immediate responses, but also to project a way out of this crisis through a path towards a better society instead of returning to capitalist normalcy. This will be possible if we give our best as peoples. The community ties and the popular, territorial and regional unity that we maintain during this battle will be part of the fabric that will build the horizons of transformation of our Abya Yala America.
In the face of the lack of housing, we occupy territories and build houses; in the face of the lack of work, we organize cooperatives, recover factories and tackle closures and layoffs; in the face of the bosses’ attacks, we fight for better working conditions; in the face of the lack of education, we create schools; in the face of the oppression of women and dissidents, we build popular feminisms; in the face of exploitation, we build grassroots trade union organisations and fight against precariousness and for decent wages; in the face of the climate crisis, we develop agro-ecology; in the face of monoculture and food monopolies, we build peasant agro-food territories to guarantee food sovereignty and autonomy; in the face of militarisation, paramilitarism and drug trafficking, we substitute cultures and fight for peace. Our alternative is life against those who offer us death.
In the face of the policy of closing borders and fragmentation, and in the face of xenophobia and neo-fascism proposed from above, we return to the horizon of continental solidarity and the unity of peoples.
Faced with the policies of the capitalists, in order to use the crisis as a cover for adjustment, let us deepen and rethink our historical struggles for the defence of territories, life and the socialisation of wealth, let us build popular and community power.
Therefore, we demand from the governments and we call on the people to:
•Â Give priority to life over debt. No to the payment of external debt, thorough investigation (full audit) and cancellation of the external debt. It is criminal to skimp on health and rights to repay the IMF and other creditors. Health and social protection systems to cope with the pandemic are the priority. We must recover our strategic wealth and the management of our banks and foreign trade, the permanent source of economic leakage from Latin American countries. Only a policy of economic sovereignty, stemming from the advance of popular power, can mitigate the economic and global crisis we are beginning to experience.
• Fighting inequality. Extraordinary tax on the rich, on the profits of banks and big business, on those who organised the flight of capital. That governments take on the role of eliminating the inequalities promoted by the market, that the necessary investments in emergency policies be financed by confronting the concentration of wealth, and not by reducing workers’ wages. Reorient the production chains of large corporations to produce inputs to combat the Coronavirus, as well as the diseases we endure without state attention, such as malnutrition, dengue fever, sleeping sickness (Chagas disease) and tuberculosis.
•Â Urgent strengthening of public health systems: urgent and priority investment in the public health system, nationalization of private health and strengthening of state measures to contain the pandemic. The pandemic reaffirms the need for universal health care for all, strengthening public promotion of these services. That states take control of the production and administration of all goods needed to address the crisis with the participation and control of workers. Elimination of the patent system on medicines in order to fully develop research and scientific applications to solve human problems, and recognition of original and traditional medicine.
• A job with every right. Guarantee of a universal income for all, prohibition of dismissals and suspensions. It is essential to recognize the rights of workers in order to live in dignified confinement. Let this urgency not be a pretext to continue to advance precarious work. No to the closure of companies. The state must support their occupation and their recovery by the workers.
• Housing and dignified living as a social right, confinement can only be achieved under a roof, with guaranteed basic services and in a healthy neighbourhood. Evictions, payment of rents and services must be suspended; housing policies must be oriented towards a comprehensive urban reform that guarantees access to housing in decent neighbourhoods for all working families. Universal access to water, light and gas and improvement of working-class neighbourhoods: there can be no fight against the pandemic without all inhabitants having access to drinking water, gas and electricity at home, in the neighbourhood or in the community. No house left without a person, no person without a house. Requisitioning of empty properties for the homeless population and for popular shelters.
• Fighting hunger and guaranteeing universal access to food, giving priority to the financing and role of cooperative, community and family-based agro-ecological agriculture in the food supply of populations, canteens, picnic areas and community kitchens: it is necessary to make progress in promoting access to food, as a means of reviving the economy and not provoking a supply crisis. Guarantee a basic food basket with regulated and tax-exempt prices. Demand sanctions against price speculation and monopolisation by supermarkets and middlemen. Cancellation of peasants’ debt, redistribution of productive land and the establishment of protection systems and agro-ecological colonies financed by the state.
•Â Against the commodification of nature, we must reclaim sovereignty over our common goods such as water, gas, oil, land, strategic wealth that is usurped by economic vampires with the collusion of local governments and entrepreneurs. Full respect for the territories of the original peoples and reconsider the economic and extractive model. The exploitation of natural resources must respect the mother earth and the peoples who inhabit it.
• Strengthening of health protection and humanitarian aid with a guarantee of sovereignty of the territories of the original peoples, indigenous and African nationalities, especially those whose habitat is in vital ecosystems such as the Amazon, for whom the epidemiological threat could mean ethnocide. Strengthening self-government and its systems for the territorial and cultural survival of the lives of indigenous and Afro peoples. Prohibition of evictions and actions that violate the sovereignty of indigenous peoples
• Genuine policies to deal with male violence: with social isolation measures, domestic violence and other forms of violence against women may increase. That for women, both cissexual and transgender, the use of information technology is not enough to combat violence against women. It must be prevented and eradicated. Budget for the prevention of femicides and trans-femicides. Shelters for people in situations of violence, special economic subsidies for survivors. Employment and education plans for women and dissidents.
• More prevention, not repression: Many governments have used the context of the coronavirus to intensify the logic of repression and surveillance and to increase the imprisonment of the poorest, community leaders, human rights defenders and mother earth. It is time to reduce the prison population as a public health problem. There is also a need to upgrade the authorities themselves and the community guards who take care of ancestral territories and are an effective community institution or a body to take care of life.
• No to imperialist political, economic and military intervention: we categorically reject the use of the crisis as an excuse for military interference in Venezuela by Yankee imperialism and its partners, the constant murders of indigenous and popular leaders in Colombia, the fierce repression of the putschist regime in Bolivia, Honduras and the anti-peoples government of Piñera in Chile, the expansion of extraction projects in indigenous and peasant territories. We demand the lifting of the blockades against Cuba and Venezuela.
•Â Internationalist Humanitarian Aid: We call on governments to request humanitarian aid from Cuba and other countries that have technical experience in the fight against the pandemic and that can help contain the Covid-19 epidemic in the cities where the pandemic has spread the most, such as Guayaquil and São Paulo.
Against the wealth of a few, for the sovereignty of the people.
For life! No to the IMF!
As the peoples of Latin America struggle:
Internationalist solidarity!
List of signatory organisations :
CONAIE Confederación de Nacionalidades IndÃgenas del Ecuador-Ecuador
Congreso de los Pueblos-Colombia
MTST Movimiento de Trabajadores Sin Techo-Brasil
CONFENIAE Confederación de Nacionalidades IndÃgenas de la AmazonÃa Ecuatoriana-Ecuador
FPDS Frente Popular DarÃo Santillán-Argentina
ONIC Organización Nacional IndÃgena de Colombia-Colombia
FOL Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha- Argentina
Ukamau-Chile
Comité por la Abolición de las deuda ilegÃtimas CADTM Abya Yala Nuestra América (Colombia, HaitÃ, Uruguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Brasil y Puerto Rico)
CRBZ Corriente Revolucionaria BolÃvar y Zamora-Venezuela
CNTE-SNTE Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación-México
AUTE sindicato electricista-Uruguay
Coordinación y Convergencia Nacional Maya Waqib’Kej- Guatemala
CNA Coordinador Nacional Agrario-Colombia
Movimiento de los Pueblos/por un socialismo feminista desde abajo.(Frente Popular DarÃo Santillán Corriente Nacional-Movimiento por la Unidad Latinoamericana y el Cambio Social -Izquierda Latinoamericana Socialista-Movimiento 8 de Abril)-Argentina
CLOC (ANAMURI, Ranquil, Conaproch, Red ApÃcola Nacional, ANMI)-Chile
FENASIBANCOL Federación Nacional de Sindicatos Bancarios Colombianos-Colombia
MPA Movimiento de Pequeños Agricultores -Brasil
CRIC Consejo Regional IndÃgena del Cauca-Colombia
UTT Union de Trabajadores de la Tierra-Argentina
PCN Proceso de Comunidades Negras-Colombia
CONAMURI Organización de Mujeres Campesinas e IndÃgenas - Paraguay
União Nacional de Trabaladoras(es) Camelôs, Feirantes e Ambulantes do Brasil-Brasil
MICC Movimiento Indigena y Campesino de Cotopaxi - Ecuador
PAPDA Plate-forme haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif-Haiti
Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz-Colombia
Feminismo Comunitario Antipatriarcal - Bolivia
Movimiento Insurgente - Bolivia.
MNCI Movimiento Nacional Campesino IndÃgena “Somos Tierra”- Argentina
CENPAZ Coordinación Nacional de Paz-Colombia
MBL Movimiento de Barrios en Lucha-Ecuador
Brigadas Populares-Brasil
Zona humanitaria de San pedro del Ingara Chocó Territorio de paz-Colombia
UNORCAC - Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas de Cotacachi - Ecuador
MTD AnÃbal Verón-Argentina
FOB Autónoma-Argentina
FOB La Libertaria-Argentina
MTR por la democracia directa-Argentina
FAR Frente Arde Rojo/COPA-Argentina
Frente Popular - Ecuador
Coordinadora Simón BolÃvar-Venezuela
Radio al Son del 23-Venezuela
Plataforma de Lucha Campesina- Venezuela
Colectivo Caminos Verdes-Venezuela
FNL Frente Nacional de Lutas -Brasil
Movimiento de Mujeres por la Vida de Cajibio y Popayán-Colombia
Red Emancipa de Educación Popular-Brasil
Feministas del Abya Yala
MPLT Movimiento Pueblo Lucha y Trabajo-Argentina
Pañuelos en RebeldÃa-Argentina
Red de la Diversidad-Bolivia
Escuela Popular Permanente-Chile
Juntos! - Juventud en Lucha-Brasil
Fabrika Zurda - Ecuador
FECAOL Movimiento Nacional Campesino - Ecuador
Asociación de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del Transporte (ASOTRASET) - Ecuador
Corriente Sindical Carlos Chile-Argentina
Colectivo Whipala-Bolivia
Plataforma por la AuditorÃa Ciudadana de la Deuda de Colombia
OLP Resistir y Luchar-Argentina
Colectivo Alexis Vive-Venezuela
Venceremos Partido de Trabajadores-Argentina
Corriente Social y PolÃtica Marabunta-Argentina
Convergencia 2 de Abril-Chile
Democracia Socialista-Argentina
ASL Accion Socialista Libertaria-Argentina
La Junta-Peru.
Venceremos Abriendo Caminos-Argentina
ORG Organización Revolucionaria Guevaristas-Argentina
Organización PolÃtica Presentes por el Socialismo «PPS» - Colombia
CPI Corriente PolÃtica de Izquierda -Argentina
Secretaria Migrantes y Refugiados UTEP-Argentina
Asamblea Pachamama-Uruguay
Comunidad Mapuche Los Toldos-Argentina
Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios del Ecuador-Ecuador
Movimiento Mujeres Por la Vida-Venezuela
Unión Comunera-Venezuela
Voces Urgentes-Venezuela
Espacio Pedagógico Cultural Fenix-Argentina
Movimiento de Jóvenes por la Patria (JPP-PPT)-Venezuela
Amigos da Terra-Brasil
Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales CDES-Ecuador
Red Feminista Ecosocialista de Ecuador-Ecuador
Coordinadora de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Oriente del Estado de México en Defensa de la Tierra, el Agua y su Cultura (CPOOEM)-México
Red de Medios Digitales de comunicación comunitaria y alternativa del Ecuador Infórmate Pueblo-Ecuador
FURIA TRAVA colectiva de travestis feministas abolicionistas-Argentina
Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME)-Mexico
Nueva Central de Trabajadores (NCT)-Mexico
ANUEE (Asamblea Nacional de Usuarios de EnergÃa Eléctrica)-Mexico
Confederación de Jubilados, Pensionados y Adultos Mayores-Mexico
Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT)-Mexico
Organización PolÃtica del Pueblo y los Trabajadores (OPT)-Mexico
Frente Socialista-Mexico
Confederación Unitaria de Comerciantes Minoristas y Trabajadores Autónomos del Ecuador CUCOMITAE-Ecuador
Fórum da Amazônia Oriental FAOR-Brasil
ICA Iglesia Cristiana à gape-Honduras
Comité de Solidaridad Latinoamericana de Mendoza-Argentina
Asamblea Vecinal ( vecinos en lucha)-Argentina
Fuera la subestación Rigolleau ( contra la contaminación de los campos CEM)-Argentina
Red de barrios irradiados de la R. A.-Argentina
FUNDACIÓN AUDIOVISUAL INDà GENA WAYAAKUA-Venezuela
MUESTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINE INDÃ GENA DE VENEZUELA MICIV-Venezuela
FUNDACIÓN PUEBLO INDIO DEL ECUADOR-Ecuador
Amigos da Terra America Latina e Caribe-ATALC
Conselho indigenista Milionário-CIMI-Brasil
UNIDAD POPULAR DE ECUADOR-Ecuador
Grupo Carta de Belém-Brasil
Jubileo Sur/Américas
Jubileu Sul Brasil
Asociación Colombiana de Educación al Consumidor-Colombia
Tatagua Colectiva Feminista Conurbano sur Bs.As- Argentina
Comité Oscar Romero de Cádiz-España
Espacio cultural, polÃtico y social La Casita en Marabunta-Argentina
Comité Oscar Romero-SICSAL-Chile.
Fundación Helmut Frenz de Educación en Derechos Humanos-Chile.
Observatorio por el Cierre de la Escuela de las Américas-Chile.
Colectivo de GeografÃa CrÃtica del Ecuador-Ecuador
TALLER DE “J”ORMACIÓN ESTUDIANTIL RAà CES - TJER-Colombia
Coordinadora indÃgena Popular Autónoma (CINPA) Oaxaca -Mexico
Colectivo de mujeres en Resistencia “Sinchi Warmi” - Ecuador
SOA Watch - Observatorio de la Escuela de las Américas
Propuesta TATU
VÓRTICE ESTUDIANTIL ALTERNATIVO
Red Intercontinental de Promoción de la EconomÃa Social Solidaria para Latinoamérica (RIPESS LAC)
Instituto de Desarrollo de la EconomÃa Asociativa (IDEAC)-Republica Dominicana
La Red Nacional de Organizaciones de EconomÃa Solidaria (REDESOL)-Republica Dominicana.
Movimiento Rebelión o Extinción-Argentina
Observatorio Minero Ambiental y Social del Norte del Ecuador OMASNE-Ecuador
Fuerza de Bases-Chile
MPL (Movimiento Popular Liberación)-Argentina
CCRS (Corriente Clasista René Salamanca)-Argentina
Source: CADTM. Translated by Sushovan Dhar of CADTM India.
