We address ourselves to the United Nations in the name of the Cry of the
Excluded, a widespread social movement which, on September 7 in Brazil, and
on October 12 throughout the Americas, will mobilize millions of people
around the theme "For Work, Justice and Life". We belong to different
countries, social sectors, and ways of thinking, but we have united to make
our voices heard, voices of indignation and hope in the international arena.

We have come here to say to the United Nations and to the governments of the
world that it is time to take energetic action to reverse the shameful
situation of misery and exclusion in which the majority of humanity has been
submerged.

We have come to expose the situation in which poor men and women live, both
in the country and in cities: farmers without land, indigenous people without
rights, the unemployed and the underemployed, migrants, children and
adolescents, older people - in short, all those excluded from the process of
liberal globalization. At the same time, we want to accompany our
denunciations with alternatives which will allow us to rise above this
situation.

Globalization. - Never before has humanity had at its disposal so many
economic, technological, and scientific resources to banish the scourge of
hunger, sickness, and illiteracy. Nonetheless, neoliberal globalization has
put the desire for profit at the center of its concerns in place of human
necessities and has set the market above social welfare, making more remote
the possibility of achieving the social and human development which everyone
desires.

When the time comes to evaluate globalization as a whole, there is one
criterion held by the executives in their luxurious offices in New York,
Washington, Brussels, Tokyo, and other cities where world powers live; and
quite another held by the excluded of the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the "young
cities" of Lima, the indigenous people of the Bolivian altiplano, or the
landless farmers of Honduras.

The results of the processes of liberalization, deregulation, and
privatization, which have been applied throughout the world for more than two
decades, are apparent, and their perverse effects have been demonstrated
statistically by diverse entities both in the UN and in civil society.
Inequalities have increased; there is more poverty and unemployment; the
quality of public services has declined; our societies are continually
becoming more violent and insecure; civil, religious, and ethnic wars claim
more, and new, victims; the traffic in human beings and campaigns of "social
cleansing" are extending their reach; gender inequality and violence and
discrimination against women persist; and finally, the environment is being
seriously affected by a model based on consumerism, pollution, and waste,
putting the very future of life on the planet in serious danger.

The causes of this economic, social, and environmental deterioration are
directly related to the structural adjustment plans imposed by the IMF and
the World Bank, the accords of the World Trade Organization, the monopolistic
concentration of the transnationals, the international debt, privatization,
and the financial crisis brought on by mobile capital, eager for high short-
term profits.

Financial power, industrial conglomerates, technology, knowledge, and
information are concentrated in the triad of the United States, Europe and
Japan. The North dominates in key economic, military, and political
structures, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank,
the Group of Seven, the World Trade Organization, and NATO, and has de facto
decision-making power in world politics, since the Southern countries have
little influence and are progressively losing their sovereignty and their
capacity to decide their own affairs.

Transnationals.- A small group of transnational corporations has acquired so
much power that it now controls a quarter of the world economy and aspires to
more, via the processes of concentration and mergers. They are wealthier
than many countries, but their actions are not subject to any type of
democratic control. To achieve immediate high profit levels, these
corporations frequently overexploit the workforce, - especially women and
children -, violate human and union rights, and ignore elementary rules of
safety. In exploiting natural, touristic, mineral, energy, agricultural, and
genetic resources, they ignore environmental standards and trample on the
collective rights of indigenous, black, rural, and urban communities.

Disparities.- The inequalities between North and South, and within our
countries, instead of diminishing, are increasing by leaps and bounds. In
1997, the wealthiest 20% of the world population received 86% of the wealth,
while the poorest 20% received 1%.

The holdings of the three richest men in the world represent a value greater
than the Gross National Product of the world's poorest 48 countries, with 600
million inhabitants. Worldwide, there are 1300 million people below the
threshold of absolute poverty; 70% of these are women. Furthermore, women
earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of its wealth.

The difference between the richest and poorest countries was around 3:1 in
1820, 35:1 in 1950, 44:1 in 1973, and 72:1 in 1992, according to UNDP. Given
this context, we are worried about the deterioration of the terms of exchange
and the drop in prices for raw materials. International development aid is
decreasing and the developed countries are very far from fulfilling their
promise of directing 0.7% of their Gross Domestic Product toward this end.

Poverty and unemployment affect not only the South, but also the North. In
the industrialized countries, more than 100 million people live in some
degree of poverty, five million are homeless, and 37 million are unemployed.

In Latin America there have never been so many poor people as now. At the
beginning of the year 2000, 224 million Latin Americans found themselves
trapped in the nightmare of poverty, as recognized by ECLAC. The number of
people living on a dollar a day rose from 63.7 million in 1987 to 78.2
million in 1998. Nonetheless, on the other side of the social pyramid, there
has never been so much wealth in so few hands. Our region holds the sad
record of being one of the most unjust in the world. The liberalization and
privatization of businesses and public services has reinforced the tendency
toward concentration of wealth, although the biggest slice of the pie has
been sent to the transnational investment holders of Europe and North
America.

External Debt.- During the period of the extraordinary sessions of the United
Nations, held in Geneva five years after the Social Development Summit in
Copenhagen, the UN reaffirmed its commitment to seeking solutions to the
problem of the external debt, which "constitutes one of the principal
obstacles to achieving sustainable, human-centered development and the
eradication of poverty." Nevertheless, a few weeks later the Group of Seven
(the wealthiest countries) met in Okinawa, Japan, and with the unacceptable
conditions they imposed, in practice buried the promises they had made one
year earlier in Cologne to pardon the debts of the poorest and most indebted
nations. The external debt has become a modern mechanism of piracy,
exploitation, and subjugation. In 1999 alone, the "developing nations" made a
net transfer of $114,600,000 to their Northern creditors. The debt is a heavy
burden which is crushing our people. Several countries direct more than half
of their state budget toward servicing the debt. The adjustment and
austerity plans imposed by the IMF represent the closure of public schools,
supply shortages in hospitals, paralysis of public services, and the
dismissal of public employees - in other words, the impossibility of escaping
backwardness and poverty.

Exclusion from decent work.- The financial crisis and the monopolization of
the economy have caused the increase in unemployment in Latin America from 6%
in 1990 to 9.5% in 1999, according to reports from the International Workers'
Organization. Along with complete unemployment, we find the so-called
informal or unstructured sector, which absorbs, in several countries such as
Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, more than half the urban workforce. Millions of
poor men, women, youths, and children who dedicate themselves to small
businesses, street selling, domestic services, agricultural activity, and
other branches of informal work, receive very low and irregular wages, live
in a situation of permanent instability, and are excluded from social
protection and liberal legislation. As the economic situation deteriorates,
children are more and more being incorporated into the workforce (15 million
at the end of the 1990s) and thus marginalized from education, food, and a
decent life.

Labor reforms and "flexibilization", adopted in order to attract foreign
investment, have only served to further degrade the worker's living
conditions. We have seen hard-won labor victories such as stability, fair
wages, social security, and the right to organize and strike erased with a
single penstroke. The slavery-like conditions - imposed mainly upon women -
in the free-trade zones and the maquiladora industries of Mexico, Central
America, and the Caribbean are a clear example of the type of integration
which North American businessmen want to impose on all of Latin America by
means of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, planned for 2005.

While a very small portion of the population has benefited from the
modernization of the economy, advances in technology, and selective
consumerism, the great majority of workers have seen a dive in income - to
the point that, in the decade of the 90s, the purchasing power of their
salaries decreased by one-third.

Authoritarianism and militarism.- States ignore their fundamental
responsibility to assure basic social services for everyone, including health
care and education, but direct huge sums toward the purchase of weapons,
despite the fact that the Cold War is a thing of the past and the armed
conflicts in Central America have been overcome. (Military expenditures in
Latin America and the Caribbean increased from $16,508.5 million in 1990 to
$26,503.2 million in 1998, according to ECLAC.

Insecurity.- Violence, sexist violence, insecurity and crime in Latin
American cities are reaching alarming levels. Latin America is considered
one of the most violent regions in the world, with average homicide rates
near 20 per every 100,000 inhabitants. The prisons are full of poor people,
because white-collar criminals rarely end up in prison. Poverty cannot be
considered the only cause of social disintegration. Inequality, corruption,
impunity, and the failure of judicial systems are all factors which
contribute to its generation and intensification.

Despite the fact that Latin America and the Caribbean have democratic systems
- more in form than in reality - in several countries social movements and
struggles are criminalized. Campesino and union leaders, indigenous people
fighting for land, defenders of human rights, and reporters are persecuted,
jailed, assassinated and threatened. Paramilitary groups financed by wealthy
landowners commit crimes and massacres with impunity, many times acting with
the complicity of state authorities. In the cities, "social cleansing"
groups take it upon themselves to eliminate those the system considers
"disposable"; that is, street children, beggars, homosexuals, and sex
workers.

Women.- In this world of deep and penetrating inequality, every day women
assume more of the responsibilities tied to our collective survival, and work
with fewer resources. Additionally, famines, natural disasters, epidemics,
and the violence which arises in these contexts infinitely expand the rings
of exclusion that affect women. Under a model where the greatest chances of
success depend on access to technology and knowledge, the possibilities for
escaping from exclusion diminish every day.

To use a concrete example: in the country, where export-oriented agricultural
policies predominate, the increase in technologies eliminates the competitive
possibilities of women's traditional production, based mainly on human
energy. These women, additionally affected by the exodus of men to the
cities, are obliged to resolve alone both their situation and that of the
children and old people under their care.

Racism and xenophobia.- The differences created by skin color, ethnic origin,
gender, language, or nationality are the order of the day. No country can
say it is free of the scourge of racism, xenophobia, and intolerance. While
in the US oppression and exclusion persist against African-Americans,
Latinos, and Native Americans, in Latin America and the Caribbean, xenophobic
attacks against Bolivians in Argentina and against Haitians in the Dominican
Republic, are an everyday reality.

In our societies, social apartheid against black and indigenous people
continues to prevail, inherited from colonial days. It manifests itself in
racial discrimination in daily life and in the denial of access (or access in
equal conditions) to land, education, justice, heath services, housing, the
media, cultural goods, and even to public and private establishments.

Migrants without rights.- While the Northern countries demand absolute
liberty for the circulation of capital and for markets, they place ever
greater restrictions on the free movement of the workforce and erect new
walls to prevent the excluded from reaching their fortresses of wellbeing and
progress. Nonetheless, the prohibitions cannot stop the wave of migrants
fleeing hunger, natural disaster, war, unemployment, and the structural
adjustment plans designed in the North. They are only seeking work and
better days for their families. Prevented from immigrating legally, many
fall into the nets of unscrupulous traffickers and are exposed to ever-
increasing danger. Since 1993, according to news sources, at least 1,574
people have died trying to reach Europe, and 536 people have met the same
fate along the Mexico-US border. Without papers, and therefore without any
right to protest, immigrants are exploited in their work, receive lower pay
than citizens, are denied the enjoyment of human rights, and often face
violence from Neonazi groups and police persecution.

Through these same mechanisms, women, in the context of immigration, are
frequently relegated to domestic or sexual work, both of which offer no
possibility of social advancement.

Furthermore, despite the fact that, according to data from the United Nations
Population Fund, migrants represent barely 2% of the world's population and
the amount of money they transfer to their countries of origin is only around
70,000 million dollars, laws have gotten stricter in the majority of
countries, in some cases affecting those with legal residency status as well
as illegal.

Rural workers without land.- Liberalization policies and the export-oriented
agricultural model controlled by large landowners and transnationals, are
destroying the medium- and small-scale agricultural production that has
historically supplied domestic markets. The opening of trade frontiers gives
rise to the massive importation of foods and an increase in domestic food
insecurity. In the social arena, these politics bring with them a decrease
in agricultural employment, the impoverishment of rural workers and their
exclusion from access to land and sustainable development, and an increase in
rural-to-urban migration.

The social principle of agricultural reform, "Land for those who work the
land," is being substituted by the neoliberal principle "Land for those who
have the capital to buy it". A greater socioeconomic polarization is the
result. In 1988, 69% of agricultural households in Latin America had little
or no participation in the ownership of the land; nine years later, this
percentage had increased to 71%. In contrast, the plantation owners have
concentrated their land holdings, as in the case of Brazil, where 1% of the
landowners control 44% of productive land.

Exclusion of original peoples.- Transnationals and locally powerful groups
covet the natural riches in indigenous territories, and seek to appropriate
the ancestral knowledge of indigenous peoples. Plants which indigenous
people have discovered, and which they have cultivated and used since ancient
times for food, medicinal, and ritual purposes, have been patented in the US,
Japan, and Europe. The TRIP Accords (Aspects of Trade Related Intellectual
Property Rights) of the WTO have contributed to this.

The very survival of indigenous peoples can be seen to be threatened by the
plundering of their lands, the relocation of their populations, extreme
poverty, the pollution of their environment, the exploitation of their lands
by timber, mining, petroleum, and other commercial interests, and the dams
and hydroelectric plants which are developed without their consent.

Indigenous peoples, nonetheless, are living in a moment where they are
reasserting their collective rights and identities, and reasserting the value
of their cultures, languages, and customs. On a State level, they are
achieving respect for their right to self-determination and to development in
accordance with their own ways of life and world vision.

Youth without futures.- The quantitative importance of youths is undeniable:
at the end of the millennium, one of every six inhabitants is an adolescent.
This sector, nonetheless, does not receive enough specific attention. Young
people find themselves in the middle of a conflict- ridden globalization
which on the one hand increases consumer expectations and on the other
decreases the availability of the means (employment and income) to fulfill
them. Young people are principally affected by the privatization and
mercantalization of education, difficulty in finding work, violence, drugs,
AIDS, and a constant devalorization, which sees them as a "problem" rather
than active, autonomous, and capable subjects.

Sexual orientation.- Exclusion is not confined to economic questions, but
feeds on all forms of pre-existing discrimination. Such is the case with the
restrictions imposed on freedom of sexual orientation, whose intersection
with other forms of exclusion not only increases the level of
marginalization, but in some cases descends to the notion of "disposable
people". The impunity which reigns over social cleansing campaigns says a
great deal about this.

Communication.- We are present at the development of an unprecedented global
communications infrastructure, which opens up unheard-of possibilities for
communication between regions and cultures and the promotion of world
democracy and peace. But the prevailing logic dictates that the same groups
which control economic and social power have a hegemonic control over the
media and the development of new technology. This tendency restricts the
social character of communication, effectively suspending the fundamental
rights to information and freedom of expression, whose full exercise requires
multiple sources and mediums of information.

Likewise, participation in communicative processes is marked by disparities,
so that the socially excluded sectors a