Last year Congress, at the behest of the Bush administration, approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which included five Central American nations plus the Dominican Republic. Costa Rica is the only participating government that hasn\'t ratified the free trade agreement, and it faces a growing and diverse popular movement seeking to block congressional approval of the trade accord.

1. The coalescing popular movement against the free trade agreement questions the economic model that Washington has been promoting for the past quarter century, and is using the intensifying free trade debate in Costa Rica to spark discussion about a development model that would more faithfully reflect the country\'s proud political-economic history.

2. Unlike most Latin American countries that dutifully applied the policies of the Washington Consensus, Costa Rica has set its own development course through public-sector investment in social services and in key economic sectors, resulting in a higher standard of living.

3. Despite the negative impact for the country\'s majority, the neoliberal project has succeeded in downsizing the economic role of the state, which has created new room for the free market to act as the final arbiter of economic, social, cultural, and political relations.

4. The free trade agreement would consolidate the dominance of the neoliberal model and consolidate it as the only accepted development path for the nation.

5. A million-dollar publicity campaign supported by the government bombards the Costa Rica public with free-trade propaganda on behalf of its sponsors, including the pharmaceutical corporations and the national elite of Costa Rica.

6. The struggle against free trade is bringing together a broad and diverse alliance of people and groups that calls for the defense of Costa Rica\'s national sovereignty and for the opportunity to create a new future under a social state based in the rule of law.

7. There is a worrisome process of criminalization of social protest, as well as repression and intimidation of those who openly express concern about the agreement.

8. Costa Rica has more to lose than other CAFTA countries due to its large public investment in the national welfare and relatively high standard of living.

Source: IRC, \"Costa Rica Protests U.S. Free Trade Agreement,\" Americas Program Talking Points #7 (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, March 23, 2007).

Web location: http://americas.irc-online.org/aptp/4104