Guatemalan bishop says free trade widens gap between rich, poor

Published: 2006-06-13

TORONTO (CNS) -- Free trade under the current economic rules can only widen the gap between rich and poor in the Americas, said the head of the Guatemalan bishops' conference. "I am not against free trade in its true sense," said Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri of San Marcos, Guatemala. "But free trade has to be based on equal rules for all players." Bishop Ramazzini, who also heads a commission formed last year to negotiate mining reform, spoke June 8 at a public meeting at Ryerson University in Toronto. The bishop said he is afraid that under terms of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. food products will flood global markets, stifling domestic production for Guatemala. "The Guatemalan peasant farmer has no social security, no job security; neither does he have access to subsidies, (unlike) the U.S. farmer, who has farming equipment, irrigation systems, and who will inevitably produce more," he said.

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