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(The following is continued from the main article listed above.) At this V People’s Summit – The True Voice of the Americas, thousands of fighters from organizations of women, unions, students, farmers, indigenous people, African-descended people, small businesses, and ecumenical religious persons gathered from throughout the hemisphere. We deliberated on the problems that we consider truly fundamental for our countries and we moved forward in the construction of proposals and so, among other petitions, we demand: - The elimination of foreign military bases, the end of colonialism, the cancellation of joint military and police exercises and training, the closing of the School of the Americas and the elimination of the Inter-American Defense System, and the end of the deployment of the IV fleet in our waters. - The end of militarization under the pretext of the war on drugs and its replacement by a comprehensive, multilateral policy with emphasis on public health measures. - The end of the militarization of civil functions such as humanitarian assistance, disaster response, and immigration control. - The end of the criminalization of social movements, and to the use of indigenous, afro, and campesino [small farmer] lands as battlefields. No to forced recruitment, to the use of women as spoils of war, and to forced displacement. In the case of Colombia, in which an armed, internal conflict persists, militarization has put these people on the brink of extinction. - The elimination of free trade agreements and investments that deepen poverty, social exclusion, and inequality and which particularly affect women. - The end of indiscriminate promotion of foreign investment, looking instead for relationships of cooperation and mutual benefit and the strengthening of autonomous processes of integration. The rights of investors cannot be above the rights of the people and of the environment. We condemn transnational companies as the primary actors in this model. - We call for a new regional financial architecture that incorporates: South Bank, the Latin American Reserve Fund, and puts and end to the impoverishing politics of debt. - Real solutions to the environmental and climate crisis directed toward its structural causes through rebuilding the financial architecture and thereby changing the development model. We defend life and common goods in the face of the commodification of nature driven by multilateral financial institutions and the countries of the North. - Respect for the right of the people to decide their agriculture policies and assure their food sovereignty, to conserve and consume their native products, all of which are threatened by monocultures, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, and big mining. - The creation of decent work for all, the guarantee of freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the end to violence against rural and urban workers of the continent to be made a priority. - Effective changes in the education systems that assure full access to education with democratic participation in the education establishment and against the privatization and commodification of education. In defense of the right to education, we support the demand of the student movement of the continent for their education to be free and universal. - Reestablish the right of Cuba to pertain to the multilateral system. Demand the United States cease the blockade of Cuba and cease its hostility toward governments that do not follow its dictates. - The deepening of autonomous integration processes without the interference of the government of the United States, and the construction of broad processes of integration from the grassroots with respect, recognition, and incorporation of input from the communities for a society based in cooperation, good quality of life for all, and the construction of a culture of peace. Sister nations of the continent join with Colombia in the search for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the armed conflict. We lament that the beautiful city of Cartagena is at the same time an example of inequality and poverty, and today of militarization with the occasion of the official summit of the presidents. We call upon all social sectors of the American continent so that we might undertake unanimously the struggles for the principles and aspirations described in this declaration, inviting them to accompany the peaceful mass civilian mobilization to achieve the proposed ends. Finally, we consider that the Summit of the Americas cannot continue being an exclusive stage, subordinated to the empire, a simulation of false harmonies. This is our voice, the true voice of the people of the Americas and thus we proclaim it before the world. |