"Sovereignty is non negotiable" is the slogan of the Plebiscite over the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), promoted throughout the first week of September throughout Brazil by the CNBB (National Conference of Brazilian Bishops), with the aid of the MST (Landless Workers Movement), the CUT (Trade Union), the CMP (Congress of Popular Movements) and peoples congress organizations. The high spot of the initiative is the Cry of the Excluded, 7 September, which for many years has been commemorated in the principal cities of the Country. Ballot papers and boxes are available for voting in parishes, community centers, neighborhood associations, trade unions and in promoting entities. Three questions are posed to the voter: 1) Should the Brazilian government sign the FTAA treaty? 2) Should the Brazilian government continue to participate in the negotiations for the FTAA? 3) Should the Brazilian government hand over part of our territory – The astrological base in Alcántara – to US military jurisdiction? In 2000, the same entities, Including the PT (Workers Party), promoted the plebiscite over external debt. They hoped for 3 million voters but 6 million turned out, the majority opposed to the imposition of more sacrifices for the Brazilian population in order to satisfy international creditors. Now, the focus is the sovereignty of the country, endangered by the proposals for the creation of the FTAA, an extension of the Monroe Doctrine that advocates control over the American continent by the United States. "We have 4% of the worlds population…" Declared Bill Clinton when he was in power, "…and control 22% of world wealth". If we want to maintain this slice of wealth, we have to sell to the remaining 96% of the world population." Sanctioning the FTAA will involve 34 countries of the Americas, only excluding Cuba, which will entail a potential market of 800 million consumers. It would be a mistake to compare the FTAA with the European Community, which was constructed over many years in the most democratic way possible, with the population debating each detail and deciding the outcome through plebiscites. Poorer countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece received benefits to stimulate their economies. In the case of the FTAA, stealthily drawn up since 1994, the least prevailing factor is solidarity. Competition between the Latin American countries and the giant economy of the United States will be so unequal that it will finish up with true annexation, the likes of which can be seen in the economies of Mexico and Puerto Rico, during the 20th Century. The FTAA tries to create a hemispheric market with enough capacity to absorb the excess production of the United States, converting our precarious industry to scrap. Within the current proposal, North American businesses endorsed by the FTAA will be able to participate in competitions for the licensing of public services, this will represent a threat to national production and reinforce the trend of increasing privatization within sectors such as health, education and welfare. The current political flexibility over labor laws, adopted by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government (FHC), forms part of the agreement with the IMF (International Monetary Fund), conditioned renewal of its contracts with Brazil to allow its unrestricted application of the FTAA. If endorsed, speculative capital will have free range to seek out maximum profit in each country in the hemisphere, increasing our level of poverty and expropriating our wealth. In eliminating control over the movement of foreign capital and the granting of tax privileges for financial transfers for those who live outside of Brazil, this country has already prepared a route of submission to the interests of Washington. How can we compete with a nation that in 2000 achieved a GNP of US$ 9.9,000 billion? In the same year Brazil's GDP was US$593 billion. The FTAA agreement expects the elimination of customs barriers, but nobody has said anything about the outlawing of the creation of non-customs barriers, which the US is accustomed to create in order to secure their protected economy. It also promotes the protection of the environment, but has not established mechanisms to avoid businesses legally questioning the norms of environmental protection, with the pretext that it affects their expectations of profit. In this way, the creation of the FTAA intensifies the sale of the natural environment, subjecting the ecosystems and biodiversity to market forces and to the interests of transnational corporations. Alcántara, District of Maranhão (114,000 hectares, 19,000 inhabitants), situated on the outskirts of the Amazon, is a region rich in biodiversity and natural resources. In spite of being a tourism center and housing a high-tech astronautical base, the district is equipped with only one hospital, one ambulance and one second grade school. The majority of homes do not have electric lights and the streets are in a state of disrepair. The base in Alcántara was created in 1980 by the Brazilian government, at the cost of the expropriation of land inhabited by nearly 500 families, the majority of whom were descended from indigenous peoples and quilombos, who were moved from a region rich in fish to seven villages where the land is unsuitable for agriculture. In 2000, the FHC government signed the transfer of the base (62,000 hectares) over to the United States, which, if sanctioned by the diplomats and senators, will transfer absolute control of the base, without our authorities being able to supervise it and, in the case of an accident, inspect the causes and effects. The agreement already has a favorable report from the Scientific and Technological Commission and now awaits the expert report from the Constitutional and Judiciary Commission, which will be subjected to immediate approval by the National Congress. The objective of the White House is to make the base in Alcántara a United States military zone within Brazil from which to launch rockets and maintain control over the Amazon region, thanks to their nuclear warheads and the information provided by SIVAM (Amazonian Surveillance System), programmed by firms in the United States. To participate in the plebiscite over the FTAA is to defend the sovereignty of Brazil and to voice opposition over the current process of global colonization. *Frei Betto is the author of "Alfabetto – autobiografia escolar", Editorial Atica.