SAO PAULO, Brazil - Backed by trade union movements and non-governmental organizations, Brazil's Roman Catholic Church is planning a plebiscite to determine the population's feelings regarding the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a church official said.
"It will be a nationwide movement to discuss the positive and negative aspects of the FTAA," Bishop Demetrio Valentini, one of the plebiscite's organizers said by phone Monday. "People will be asked to vote yes or no on several FTAA-related issues, which we still have not defined."
"The FTAA will affect the lives of millions of people and as such should be discussed and debated openly by all of society. This is what the plebiscite will be all about."
The U.S.-sponsored FTAA, which is scheduled to take effect in 2005, is a hemisphere-wide free trade zone that would group 34 nations into the world's biggest common market.
As the world's ninth-largest economy and the biggest country in Latin America, Brazil's support is seen as a key factor in the FTAA's creation.
Acknowledging that the plebiscite will have an anti-FTAA flavor, Valentini said the overriding theme will be "whether or not Latin America should submit itself to the interests of the United States."
"We cannot negotiate our sovereignty nor sell our soul to the devil," he added.
No date for the plebiscite has been set.