From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: NAFTA ECO-CIDE: Lowest Common Denominator in Env. Protection
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:48:59 GMT

*Subject: NAFTA ECO-CIDE: Lowest Common Denominator in Env. Protection

[From PeaceNet's trade.news via misc.activism.progressive]
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Topic 141       TRADE.NEWS 8-12-92 
kmander Updates on GATT & NAFTA Negotiations     9:53 am  Aug 12, 1992 
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Resources: 

    1.  A U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE (GAO) STUDY CONCLUDES THAT  
    THERE IS "WIDESPREAD FAILURE" BY U.S. COMPANIES operating in  
    Mexico to comply with Mexico's environmental regulations.  To  
    order a copy of the report, "U.S.-Mexico Trade -- Assessment of  
    Mexico's Environmental Controls for New Companies," (GAO-GGD  
    92-113), call the General Accounting Office at (202) 275-6241. 

_________________________________________________________ 

Produced by: 
Kai Mander     
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) 
1313 Fifth Street SE, Suite #303 
Minneapolis, MN 55414-1546 USA 

Telephone:(612)379-5980 Fax:(612)379-5982  
E-Mail:kmander@igc.org 
_________________________________________________________ 

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"Environmental Disaster in Mexico" (Reuter) 

    "The region [...] has become a dumping ground for toxic waste and 
    pesticides by multinational corporations whose actions are rarely 
    monitored by Mexico's cash-strapped environmental agency [...] an 
    official acknowledged [..] that only about 35 per cent of the 
    U.S.-owned factories along the 3,200 kilometre border were 
    believed to be complying with Mexican environmental laws covering 
    their operations and their disposal of toxic waste." 

    "The maquiladoras have thrived on Mexico's low labour costs to  
    become the most dynamic part of its manufacturing sector.  Mexican  
    officials expect them to continue expanding as the two countries  
    eliminate trade barriers and push for increased border  
    industrialization." 

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Guardian Analysis of "Fast Track" (I) 

    "Horror stories abound in this region deemed 'a virtual cesspool' 
    by a 1990 American Medical Association study [...] In 1988, a 
    General Motors subsidiary was discovered dumping hundreds of 
    barrels of toxics at a desert waste site less than two miles from 
    a public beach in Matamoros. [...] Border infrastructure has been 
    strained to the maximum by the growth promoted by these tax-exempt 
    industries." 

    "Mexican ecologists warn that the exclusion of ecological concerns 
    from the upcoming trade negotiations, insisted upon by both Bush 
    and Salinas, will extend the border model of "distorted 
    development" to the entire country. They suggest that Bush's dream 
    of "trade without barriers" refers more to freedom from labor and 
    environmental legislation than to national protectionism, which 
    has already been dropped uni-laterally by Mexico." 

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"Pollution Kills 100,000 Children In Mexico City Each Year" (Excelsior) 

    100,000 children die every year as a result of pollution in the 
    Mexico City metropolitan area, 250,000 people suffer from eye 
    diseases, between 2 and 10% of minors below the age of 16 suffer 
    from asthma, 5 million people suffer respiratory diseases, and 
    life expectancy has been reduced by up to ten years, according to 
    the National Environmentalist Groups. 

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    "It is more fashionable to bemoan the environmental and human 
    catastrophes of Eastern Europe, the results of an evil system now 
    happily overcome in a victory for our humane values." 

[From: Noam Chomsky, _The Victors: Part II_ (see chomsky.views for 
unfootnoted version. Footnoted version to be posted there by fall).] 


The journal [Mexico's leading daily (@u<Excelsior>)] also reports a 
study by environmental groups, presented to President Salinas, 
claiming that 100,000 children die every year as a result of pollution 
in the Mexico City area, along with millions suffering from 
pollution-induced disease, which has reduced life expectancy by an 
estimated 10 years.  The "main culprit" is the emissions of lead and 
sulfur from operations of the national petrochemical company Pemex, 
which is free from the controls imposed elsewhere -- one of the 
advantages of Third World production that is not lost on 
investors.@note{@u<Excelsior>, March 3, 1990; Nov. 11, 1989 (@u<LANU>, 
May, Jan., 1990).} 

The Mexican Secretariat of Urban Development and the Environment 
described the situation as "truly catastrophic," @u<Excelsior> reports 
further, estimating that less than 10% of Mexican territory is able to 
support "minimally productive agriculture" because of environmental 
degradation while water resources are hazardously low.  Many areas are 
turning into "a real museum of horrors" from pollution because of the 
blind pursuit of profits on the part of national and international 
private capital.  The Secretariat estimates further that more than 90% 
of industry in the Valley of Mexico, where there are more than 30,000 
plants, violate global standards, and in the chemical industry, more 
than half the labor force suffers irreversible damage to the 
respiratory system.@note{@u<Excelsior>, Aug. 19, July 1, 1990; 
@u<LANU>, Oct., Sept. 1990.} 

Maude Barlow, chairperson of a Canadian study group, reports the 
results of their inquiry into maquiladoras "built by Fortune 500 to 
take advantage of a desperate people," for profits hard to match 
elsewhere.  They found factories full of teenage girls, some 14 years 
old, "working at eye-damaging, numbingly repetitive work" for wages 
"well below what is required for even a minimum standard of living." 
Corporations commonly send the most dangerous jobs here because 
standards on chemicals are "lax or nonexistent." "In one plant," she 
writes, "we all experienced headaches and nausea from spending an hour 
on the assembly line" and "we saw young girls working beside open vats 
of toxic waste, with no protective face covering." Unions are barred, 
and there is an ample reserve army of desperate people ready to take 
the place of any who "are not happy, or fall behind in quotas, or 
become ill or pregnant." The delegation "took pictures of a lagoon of 
black, bubbling toxic waste dumped by plants in an industrial park," 
following it to "where it met untreated raw sewage and turned into a 
small river running past squatters' camps (where children covered in 
sores drank Pepsi Cola from baby bottles) to empty into the Tijuana 
River."@note{Maude Barlow, chairperson of Council of Canadians, 
@u<Toronto Globe & Mail>, Nov. 5, 1990.} 

It is more fashionable to bemoan the environmental and human 
catastrophes of Eastern Europe, the results of an evil system now 
happily overcome in a victory for our humane values. 

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