Open letter to the 36 (1) Heads of State of the Americas

We address you as citizens of the Americas: men, women, and children. Workers, unemployed, youth and retired people. 

We are from the South, having travelled North in search of a better life. We are from the North, having accepted those whose only wish was for a decent life for themselves and their children. 

We live together in this country, side by side. Over the years, we have shared the same fundamental reality, the same conception of life, the same humanity. 

We want to tell you today that we have suffered from 30 years of your economic and social policies. We continue to suffer to varying degrees, from your policies which have enabled a minority to grab a greater and greater share of the wealth which we have produced and continue to produce, without ever having had the right to an equal share. We have survived, more or less. But many others have not: men women and, all too often, children too.

You are now meeting in various cities of our various countries to discuss free trade and market globalisation. You are meeting behind closed doors, protected by thousands of uniforms, and behind your new wall of shame, far away from us, your co-citizens. 

But we want you to know that: 

¨        We declare that all human beings, citizens of the Americas and the planet, have the same fundamental rights: whatever their sex, whatever the colour of their skin, and whatever their background;

 ¨        We denounce the fact that today, when our societies have the means to eliminate misery and poverty, there are important segments of our countries' populations that do not have enough to eat, that cannot secure adequate housing, have no running water or minimal sanitation services, cannot earn a decent income nor aspire to decent living conditions. Even here in Quebec, our government refuses to guarantee for those who have no other income a minimum welfare scale (2) to cover such basic needs as housing, food, clothing and health;

 ¨        We also believe in globalization and unity, the unity of the larger human family. but we know that a society that is based upon power, instead of quality of life and fulfilment of each and every individual, leads to inhumane results, with dire consequences for humanity as a whole. The power to protect and promote life is grander and nobler than that of taking it away. Real power is measured by the ability to resist fate, not to profit from it..

 You never tire of saying that your treaties aim only at improving the well-being of all our communities. So we ask you to state what you have committed yourselves to doing over the next five years in order to solve the greatest of all human rights and liberty problems in our countries, that of poverty. We ask you to state , publicly, how you will defend and promote this first and most important commitment of all: a commitment to life and the basic rights that ensue. 

 We are meeting together today in a community centre in South-West Montreal. But on April 21^st, 2001 we will be in the streets, like so many others from the millions you have rejected over the years. We will be awaiting your answer.

 In order to let us know your reply, all you have to do is come out! 

Zero Poverty! ¡Cero Pobreza! Pobreza Zero! Pauvreté Zéro! 

Notes 

(1) The 34 heads of state invited, plus the Cuban President Fidel Castro, and the Quebec Prime Minister Bernard Landry. 

(2) For more information (in French): http://www.baremeplancher.net/accueil.htm

Centre for Media  Alternatives for Quebec 2001