The raids came only eight months after Bush announced his immigration ‘reform’ plan. Though the administration’s immigration ‘reform’ was basically a guest-worker program that served big business, the Bush administration reckoned that some of the false hopes raised by the plan would translate into more votes for Republican candidates. However, the raids speak volumes on what the Bush administration is all about. It has an agenda that is racist, reactionary and quick to employ repression.

One effect of this latest round of raids, which are unusual in their size and distance from the border with Mexico, has been to create widespread fear in immigrant communities throughout the Southwest. Mexican and Latino parents are afraid to send their children to school and the undocumented hesitate to go shopping, to church or to use public transportation. The creation of this climate of fear and worry is no accident. It’s by design. The exploitation of the undocumented by agribusiness, manufacturing and retail corporations is one of the pillars of the Southwest economy. The immigration raids are ablunt tool to reinforce a system of robbery and national oppression.

The Southwest of the U.S. was once northern Mexico. Like the slavery of African Americans, the theft of almost half of Mexico cannot be dismissed as ancient history without any relevance for today. One of the results of this land grab, and the subsequent discrimination and oppression unleashed from Texas to California, was the development of the Chicano people – a nation within the U.S. borders. The immigrations raids, directed at Mexican immigrants and others, fit right in with a system of racist inequality which pervades the Southwest. The oppression directed at Chicanos and Latinos impacts on every aspect of life; ranging from wages and working conditions to the denial of basic democratic rights – rights that include equality for the Spanish language, political power and self-determination.

By launching these raids the Bush administration has lifted a rock, only to drop it back on its foot. The days when the powers that be can deny something as basic as drivers licenses to those without documents are numbered. The powerful demonstrations in Ontario and other California cities are the shape of the future. Attacks on the undocumented are being met by a growing and determined movement that will settle for nothing less than legalization and full equality.

On July 10, the National Alliance for Human Rights convened an emergency statewide meeting in Ontario, California to help organize local, regional and statewide coalitions to build a statewide mobilization plan against the raids and other racist attacks. Local actions and mass mobilizations are planned for the next three months.

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The context of the attempts by the Bush administration to push these trade agreements is that of growing U.S. military intervention in the region, including efforts to overthrow the democratically elected Chavez government in Venezuela and increasing funding for Plan Colombia.

The focus on trade gives progressive activists the opportunity to hand Bush the first major defeat of his new administration.

The recent left victory in the Uruguayan presidential elections dealt a blow to the FTAA. The Chavez government in Venezuela, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva and, now, the government of Uruguay have all lined up against the FTAA. This makes CAFTA much more important for the U.S.’s bid to gain economic control of the Americas. It also means that a defeat on CAFTA could derail the entire FTAA process.

The Bush administration began negotiating CAFTA two years ago, expecting little opposition in the U.S. or in Central America. However, they miscalculated. Workers, farmers, students, consumers and opposition political parties in Central America have come together with fair trade, labor and solidarity activists from the U.S. to organize resistance to the agreement. Sugar beet farmers in the upper Midwest and shrimpers in Louisiana have added their voices to this growing opposition.

Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Central America have repeatedly marched against CAFTA and broader neo-liberal economic policies of free trade and privatization. Though opposition has been strongest in Central America, the greatest possibility for stopping CAFTA will be in the U.S. Congress.

The Democratic Party has not historically opposed free trade agreements, unless they were seeking labor’s endorsement, and Kerry was very ambivalent in his statements about renegotiating CAFTA. This, along with the Republican victory, may cause some to think that the possibility of passing CAFTA has improved, but in fact a major fight remains. Many of the Democrats that are retiring or have been voted out were fierce free-traders – seven of the 21 Democrats that voted for Fast Track in 2001 will no longer be around. Also, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), a staunch opponent of CAFTA, will take over as the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee. The anti-CAFTA movement in the U.S. is united in stopping the seriously flawed agreement and has forced the congressional Democratic leadership into vowing opposition. The battle lines have been clearly drawn.

The timing for a vote, however, remains in question. House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) stated last week that Republicans were still a few votes away and said, “It will be coming up when we have the votes to pass it.” To date, they do not have the votes. What is clear is that Bush is far from having a mandate, and that the growing movement against free trade now has the opportunity to mobilize the previously unorganized anti-Bush activists.

When CAFTA was first proposed, very few people in the U.S. thought the plan could be defeated. When told this, numerous organizers in the Salvadoran movement stated, “We do not choose our battles based on what can be won; we choose our battles based on what the needs of our people are. We know that our struggle is just, and if we continue to organize for what is right, we will one day be victorious.” Three years later, activists from throughout the U.S. and Central America are about to do what many thought impossible – hand Bush and his cronies a defeat on CAFTA, and a major blow for the trade agenda.

To get involved in the battle against CAFTA, contact the Stop CAFTA Coalition or the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

Cherrene Horazuk is an expert on Latin America and former national director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

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Soto was in El Salvador to help organize container cargo truck drivers, an economic sector that is critical in the free trade model. Truck drivers and port workers in Central America are frequently prevented from organizing unions and have almost no protections for their rights as workers. This keeps wages down, which gives the companies producing and transporting cheap clothing, food and other products from Central America to the U.S. even bigger profits. Every attempt to organize within the trucking sector has been met with mass firings and repression. Soto was in El Salvador to lend his support to an organizing effort by drivers for the Maersk Corporation, one of the largest container cargo companies in the world.

Soto was shot in the back by masked gunmen while he was making a cell phone call on the steps of his mother’s house. Nobody has been apprehended. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the AFL-CIO have offered a $75,000 reward for information on the killing. Several days after Soto’s assassination, the offices of CEAL, the Center for the Study of Labor, were ransacked. It’s clear that death-squad elements in El Salvador, who have been largely quiet since the war ended in 1992, believe that they also have a mandate from the U.S. elections: that they can do whatever they deem necessary to ensure the crushing of opposition to pro-corporate economic policies.

However, Francisco Soto has vowed to continue the organizing effort begun by his brother Gilberto. Santiago Flores, director of the progressive FUNDASPAD organization in El Salvador, says that Salvadorans will persist in their own popular struggles and alternatives, while resisting U.S. intervention. Once again, the Salvadoran and U.S. right wing have underestimated the will and resolve of the people in determining their own path forward.

The elites throughout Central America, who are scrambling to destroy popular opposition to their economic policies, are thrilled with the Bush victory. Nowhere was it more blatant than in El Salvador. Just days before the U.S. presidential elections, both major papers published full-page ads calling Bush “a friend of our country” and asking Salvadorans to call family members in the U.S. and urge them to vote for Bush. Salvadorian President Tony Saca called the elections “a victory for democracy and freedom and a defeat for populism” and promised the rapid approval of CAFTA. The Salvadoran ruling class has a friend in the White House for another four years and believe they can once again get away with murder.

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