Madrid Update No. 3

Here is my third report from Madrid where I am attending the World Social Forum on Migrations. This is the second forum. The first was held in Brazil two years ago. Today, I had two interesting individuals who are doing Ph.D. work here in Madrid. One named Gilmar, who is an asylee here in Spain from Chile. He was a lawyer in Chile and had to flee a few years back. The other was Genoveva Roldan Davila who is an economist from Mexico. Both have enjoyed the intellectual atmosphere of Madrid.

I attended a session today on Globilization and Migration–impact in the rural and urban sectors. The session started with an academic presentation by Thierry Linard d Gueterschin. His basic points: migration is related to emerging markets; migration might be viewed as a problem or a solution to emerging markets; the poor are getting poorer–the masses are increasingly vulnerable; migration is a response to structural problems; the external debt of various countries affect income of workers; the problem with many free market agreements (liked NAFTA) is that the agreements are about capital and goods, not about the circulation of people; the World Bank is beginning to view immigrant remittances as a way for poorer countries to pay off debts. I suppose his big point was to view migration as a function of development.

The session got much more lively with the other two speakers. One person (have to get his name later) was representing Andoni Garcia Arriola, who could not attend. The speaker is a farmer from Spain. His talk essentially was a major attack on the fact that farming will become part of the WTO. Multi-national corporations will benefit from this, but not the average farmer. In fact, life will become very difficult for farmers within the European Union, as farm product imports will be shifted to poorer countries. The problem is 95% of land in those countries is owned by only a few people (the oligarchy) in the poor countries. Those countries will end up exporting even though there is not enough to feed the poor in the very same countries! Originally, farmers in the EU were protected, but that is no longer true. In 3 to 4 years, farming will be radically reduced in the EU. There will be migration of those farmers into cities. He helped to found ¨Via Campesino” a worldwide organization. With farming becoming part of the WTO, big distribution will occur, where the wealthy countries benefit by selling products, but working families will not benefit. Farmers within the EU will have to move to fmind work because they will be hungry. Some families will suffer separation, as the wife stays home and the husband leaves to find work. Small farms will disappear.

The final speaker was Carlos Girbau who is on the conference organizing committee and a local activist here in Madrid. Madrid has become more and more diverse within the past 15 years. In Spain, over that period of time, there have been somewhere between 2.5 and 3.2 million immigrants–550,000 to Madrid alone. 10% of the Madrid population is immigrant (4% of the country´s population). Globilization and the WTO have hurt the country. Some big companies may have benefited (and even invested in places like Argentina and Bolivia), but many other countries are closing and relocating. The production index for the country has fallen. Although housing building has increased, few migrants can afford housing. One problem is that 95% of migrants are on ¨temporary contracts¨ but you need a permanent contract to be able to rent a flat. So many end up sharing in crowded conditions.  This past April 1 & 2, a meeting of social activists and migrant representatives convened and reached a social agreement on migration that they intend to promote. The elements of the agreement include respect for pluralism, human rights, asylum rights, to fight against racism, to condemn the genocide occurring in Africa, migrants should have the same labor rights as natives, promote family reunification for migrants, the right to vote for immigrants, and to fight against exploitation of migrants.

I was also happy to hear an old acquaintance, Carlos Marientes, from El Paso, Texas speak on a different panel–Borders: for life or death? Carlos is with the Border Agricultural Workers Project and its purpose is to organize agricultural workers to seek improvement for their lives. Carlos was able to educate listeners from all over the world about the deaths at the US-Mexico border that occur daily–unnecessarily. He talked about the marches and May 1 activities that have occurred in the United States in support of immigrant rights, and he talked about his own life living on both sides of the border all his life. Great work Carlos!

bh