Sen. Iris Vianey Mendoza
Click here for the original statement in Spanish.
An English translation follows:
The government of Mexico has engaged in secret negotiations, behind the backs of the public and elected legislators, but open to an army of transnational companies, on the latest neoliberal project led by the U.S. government, a super free trade agreement in the Pacific area. With totally undemocratic methods and secret contents – though some have been leaked – the TPP is being negotiated with the aim of securing more power and binding rights for transnational corporations, from those already contained in the WTO or other FTAs with full neoliberal agendas, and to reduce the political space for public action to the state and society. Through the TPP, transnational capital tries to impose the rules that govern a new international neoliberal order.
This weekend, the outrage of some government officials who participated in the TPP negotiations in Salt Lake City, Utah, was leaked. In this round the U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property, Stan McCoy, and his entourage of more than 20 consultants have employed techniques of bullying or intimidation of negotiators with the clear intention to adopt texts that place profits of large pharmaceutical and digital multinationals ahead of the lives of people, but ultimately did not succeed.
As it is known by the official text of the chapter on intellectual property of the TPP, leaked by Wikileaks and La Jornada in Mexico, a key goal of the pharmaceutical transnationals is to unreasonably extend the duration of drug patents and technical and medical procedures, although this would have serious consequences for many people and governments.
It means giving monopolies higher profits and prevent the production or use of inexpensive generic drugs, but also to attack seriously the budgets of public health systems (such as governmental purchasing of medicines) and even to prevent access to those medicines by poor people, or in an emergency situation, such as pandemics, or other people that in risk of losing their of lives.
The U.S. and its transnational companies have sought with this intimidation to break the growing resistance of countries that are at the crossroads of meeting either their national interests or those of transnational corporate interests.
As more becomes known – from the leaked text –about the nature of the proposed TPP, also the resistance of some countries on many issues are beginning to be leaked, as well as the media maneuvering that emerged this weekend announcing that the negotiations of the TPP will be concluded at the next meeting of Ministers to be held in Singapore from 7 to 12 December.
It is a dangerous media maneuver, since even the U.S. negotiators haven’t the fast track mechanism authority. A growing majority of 260 representatives and 60 senators from both parties have publicly denied and have warned that the TPP will not pass. Under these circumstances, no one has any guarantee of fulfillment of what has been agreed, or what is intended to present in the media as a triumph and to continue hiding the political intention of hiding to us the negotiating text.
What has already been filtered, against the wishes of Mexican negotiators, uncovers, for example, that Big Pharma continues pressing and want the negotiators to accept TPP rules that violate international commitments (WTO , ILO, UNESCO , UN), already signed, or commitments made with their parliaments or within their own constitutions.
The patenting of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity is a little known example of what is intended and is supported, or at least not being defended, by Mexican negotiators. This attitude would be an open violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and biodiversity.
Such objectives have been tried to be achieved shamelessly by transnational control and a punitive regime in the area of digital rights and the internet. This pretense contained in the old draft ACTA (approved behind the backs and against the advice of the Senate of the Republic by the government officers on duty then) was in the end rejected worldwide, but it is revived in the TPP negotiations.
Many corporate proposals remain being controversial and there isn’t a text that does not contain unresolved contradictions. In agriculture, Japan stands out for trying to protect sensitive crops; on state owned enterprises several countries defend their national interest. But the exception are the Mexican negotiators that are willing to sell the Mexican oil company (PEMEX) and electricity company (CFE); on rules of origin many Asian countries, Vietnam and Malaysia remarkably, contrast with Mexico in the defense of their garment industry; in the scandalous issue of investor-state disputes, most countries remain opposed that it remains in the negotiating text, and so on.
Given all this, it is clear that the intention to complete the TPP at the next WTO meeting on December is a media maneuver that needs to be exhibited and stopped.
It is unacceptable that some governmental officials adopt this intimidating behavior and be more responsive to the interests and profits of transnational corporations than public interests.
We reiterate the demand that the government of Mexico ends its attitude of frequent accomplice in the abduction of the negotiated text and continues concealing its position of ally on key positions taken by the U.S. but rejected by most countries.
We reiterate the requirement that Mexican negotiators release the negotiating text now, and encourage a democratic and respectable public debate.
We have said it and reiterate it loudly: the TPP is the most dangerous international threat to national sovereignty, to public policies, to economic, social, cultural and human rights in general, as well as to international law. The procedure by which the TPP is being negotiated and its contents are completely contrary to the principles of respect to democracy and sovereignty of peoples and nations enshrined in the UN Charter.
Contact in Mexico City: Alejandro Villamar alermalc@gmail.com
Contact in Washington: Manuel Perez Rocha mperezrocha@yahoo.com.mx Phone: 240-838-6623
