Letter of the Social Movements Assembly at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
21 April 2010
Movements, networks and social organizations gathered at the Assembly of Social Movements held in Cochabamba, in the framework of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change, welcome the initiative of President Evo Morales Ayma and respond to the global call to confront the commodification and privatization of common goods and the climate change debate itself.
We consider that the issue of climate change is important along with other manifestations of the global systemic crisis. To confront the imperialist offensive there must be an end to the militarization of our territories and the criminalization of social movements, an end to the neocolonial agenda included in the FTAs, an end to the power of transnational corporations and especially the agribusiness and extractive model that promote the privatization of life and nature.
The resistance is being built from the relationship among different anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial and anti-racist perspectives, which claim that this systemic crisis will not be paid by the peoples, and at the same time promote alternatives to find a new paradigm based on equality, good living and sovereignty of the peoples.
This process of articulation in permanent construction is dynamic, comprehensive, popular and decentralized, and seeks greater coordination among social movements to strengthen popular mobilizations. From the Assembly of Social Movements we are committed to expand our work by strengthening processes in Asia, Africa, North America and Europe.
We consider that one of the main challenges is to strengthen our platform of common struggles and alternatives in a process that is reinforced by the regions and seeks global impact.
The Assembly of Social Movements is part of an agenda made up by many key spaces, including the People’s Summit “Enlazando Alternativas” IV in Madrid (14-18 May), the Social Forum of the United States, the Mesoamerican Forum against Agribusiness in El Salvador (3-5 June), the 4th Social Forum of the Americas in Asuncion (11-15 August), the International Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations on September 21 and the Global Day of Action against Monsanto (October 16), the 4th World Social Forum on Migration in Ecuador (October), the Third International Action of the World March of Women in Congo (14-17 October) and the mobilization process towards Cancun where the COP 16 will be held. We are also planning to have in October a global week of action for climate justice, unifying the struggles as the ones carried out by movements resisting the privatization and commodification of water in “Blue October.”
We want the Assembly of Social Movements to continue being a dynamic space to join our processes and actions, and to continue being another tool to coordinate our struggles.
We hope that the results of this conference in Cochabamba strengthen the mobilization and resistance process, notably the Global Referendum on Climate Change, which we must promote, discuss and include in our movements as an important element to raise awareness towards Cancún and the People’s Tribunal on Ecological Debt and Climate Justice.
We call the social movements of the continent and the world to promote a unified and broad mobilization to demand change, denouncing those responsible for driving the false solutions to the systemic crisis, including the climate crisis.