November 22, 2006 -- blog.aflcio.org -- Jeff Vogt, global economic policy specialist in the AFL-CIO Legislation Department, describes how once again, the Bush administration is signing a trade agreement that ignores workers’ fundamental rights.

The United States and the Republic of Colombia today are signing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), despite urgent calls from leading Democrats to renegotiate the agreement to strengthen labor protections.

Rep. Linda Sanchez. November 22, 6006 -- The Huffington Post Blog

Over the past decade, our trade policy has run amok.

We have learned the hard way from NAFTA - and the deals like CAFTA that have spawned from it - that our skepticism of the free trade model is well-founded.

Oxfam Urges Focus on Trade Preferences for Developing Countries Instead

International aid organization Oxfam criticized the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in Washington today, an agreement it says will harm thousands of vulnerable small farmers, restrict access to affordable medicines and favor foreign investors over domestic development needs.

November 22, 2006 -- By Signing Colombia Free Trade Agreement Without Addressing Democrats’ Concerns, Bush Administration Signals It Would Rather Play Partisan Political Games Than Pass a Trade Agreement

Helda Martínez - BOGOTA, Nov 21 (IPS) - Indigenous and black people, trade unionists and victims of the armed conflict in Colombia are preparing to fight the ratification of the free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, which will be signed by the trade ministers of both countries Wednesday in Washington.

By Peter S. Goodman, The Washington Post. Tuesday 14 November 2006

As Democrats prepare to take control of Congress, incoming leaders are planning to insert labor and environmental protections into pending trade treaties and to demand that the Bush administration adopt similar measures in future pacts it negotiates, congressional aides and government officials said yesterday.

Bogotá, November 13, 2006

The Honorable U.S. Congress
Washington D.C.
U.S.A.

A cordial greeting:

Not a single organization that represents workers, peasants, native peoples, students, intellectuals or other sectors of the common people of Colombia supports the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. Even the majority of organizations of agricultural businesspeople opposed the treaty until February 27, 2006, the day when the signature was affixed. But we do not reject the FTA because we are opposed in principle to international business or to relations with the United States. We are opposed because it sacrifices the sovereignty of Colombia, it annexes the Colombian economy to that of the United States, and it takes away from our country the main instruments of development and thus will increase the poverty of almost all Colombians.

November 13, 2006

Dear Member of Congress:

Attached please find a letter from Afro-Peruvian and Afro-Colombian organizations in Peru and Colombia regarding free trade agreements with the United States.

Bogotá, May 17, 2006. Colombian Network against ‘Free Trade' and the FTAA - RECALCA

At the writing of this pronouncement, the indigenous mobilization from Northern Cauca, which began last Monday, is still occupying the Pan-American Highway. The violent response of the police to this manifestation has left one indigenous compañero dead and more than 70 wounded. If this isn't enough, the Departmental and National Governments, through their spokesperson, the Minister of Interior and the Vice President have come up with no better answer that to accuse the indigenous protest of being an action of the FARC (one of the armed rebel groups). In reaction to this ridiculous and scandalous accusation, the Colombian people must express a profound rejection, and demand that the repression stop and that a negotiation begin immediately.