Catholic Relief Services(CRS) is the official international relief and development agency of the US Catholic community.

CRS operates field offices, or works with network partners, on 5 continents in over 90 countries.

In this interview we look at the potential for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to contribute to the conditions that could lead to an increase in human trafficking.

Mary Delorey is the Latin American issues advisor for CRS. Mary also has responsibilities within the organization as the advisor on human trafficking issues.

Kathy Selvaggio is the economic issues advisor for CRS. In this capacity she focuses primarily on international trade.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, is intended to “open� markets between the United States, five Central American countries, and the Dominican Republic.

Proponents of CAFTA claim that the agreement will create freer and fairer trade between the nations.

In this audio interview I speak with Mary and Kathy about CRS’ concern with CAFTA.

[Editor's note: The mp3 is currently one file; a little ove 16Mb. Apologies to those with low bandwidth Internet connections. I will have this interview broken into smaller parts in several weeks]

CRS was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States.

Along with providing international relief and aid services, one of CRS’ stated missions is “ ...educating the people of the United States to fulfill their moral responsibilities toward our global brothers and sisters by helping the poor, working to remove the causes of poverty, and promoting social justice.�

The Dominican Republic - Central American Free Trade Agreement(CAFTA-DR), more commonly known as CAFTA, is a trade agreement between the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

CAFTA is intended to “open� markets between the United States and the five Central American countries, creating what proponents have referred to as “free trade�.

Negotiated in one-seventh the time, CAFTA follows in the footsteps of NAFTA, a trade agreement between the United States and Mexico.

Both of these trade agreements are considered by many to be part of a larger trade negotiation effort named the Free Trade Area of the Americas(FTAA). FTAA is intended to be a trade agreement between 34 economies.

At 12:07AM Eastern Standard Time, Thursday July 28 of this year, almost one hour after voting was supposed to cease, CAFTA passed by a narrow margin of 217 to 215 in the US House of Representatives.

At 11:17pm Wednesday evening, the time voting was supposed to close, the vote stood at 180 against, and 175 for.

Ignoring Democrats' protests that the House’s voting rules were being violated, the GOP leadership kept the voting open while trying to round up additional votes in favor of CAFTA.

In writing on the amount of pressure Republican leadership was placing on its members to vote in favor of CAFTA, the Financial Times quoted a Republican representative as saying that House leadership would “...twist some Republican arms until they break into a thousand pieces�.

The Washington Post reported that during the last minute efforts to get votes in favor of CAFTA, “Republican leadership told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask�.

The Post added that “Lawmakers said many of the favors bestowed in exchange for votes (for CAFTA) would be tucked away in huge energy and highway bills scheduled to pass in the following week".

In describing the amount of excess within the energy bill that was passed one week later, Republican Senator John McCain referred to it as the "No-Lobbyist-Left-Behind Act."

On April 13th 2005 the Bishop of San Marcos, Guatemala, Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini, testified before Congress, where he voiced his beliefs that CAFTA would lead to severe displacement of the poor people of Guatemala.

Along with testifying before Congress, Bishop Ramazzini toured the United States in an effort to generate support for a rejection of CAFTA in the form in which it was written.

In his Congressional testimony Bishop Ramazzini stated that “Without a concerted effort to complement trade and development in a serious way… the rights of workers to decent wages, small farmers to a fair price, access to health care and education for the young will be cruelly denied and the promise of democratic reforms and a just participation in the global market will be frustrated.�

Bishop Ramazzini concluded “We can do better, and we must do better, in shaping a bold, comprehensive and integrated trade and development agenda that will guarantee positive results for the poor among us�.

A copy of Bishop Ramazzini’s testimony can be found on the web site of Senator Tom Harkin(D) of Iowa. http://harkin.senate.gov/documents/pdf/RamazziniTestimony.pdf

On August 2, 2005 President Bush signed CAFTA into law.

At the signing, President Bush referred to CAFTA as "...a commitment among freedom-loving nations to advance peace and prosperity throughout the region�

In this interview I speak with Mary and Kathy about Catholic Relief Services’ concerns with CAFTA.

We discuss the limited democratic process through which CAFTA was developed.

We look at the disconnect between policy talks on migration and policy talks about trade.

We talk about the increase in the phenomena of the feminization of poverty.

And we look into the strong differences of opinion concerning the economic and societal ramifications of CAFTA.