Letter of the Social Movements Assembly at the World People’s
Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

21 April 2010

Movements, networks and social organizations gathered at the Assembly
of Social Movements held in Cochabamba, in the framework of the World
People’s Conference on Climate Change, welcome the initiative of
President Evo Morales Ayma and respond to the global call to confront
the commodification and privatization of common goods and the climate
change debate itself.

We consider that the issue of climate change is important along with
other manifestations of the global systemic crisis. To confront the
imperialist offensive there must be an end to the militarization of
our territories and the criminalization of social movements, an end to
the neocolonial agenda included in the FTAs, an end to the power of
transnational corporations and especially the agribusiness and
extractive model that promote the privatization of life and nature.

The resistance is being built from the relationship among different
anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial and anti-racist
perspectives, which claim that this systemic crisis will not be paid
by the peoples, and at the same time promote alternatives to find a
new paradigm based on equality, good living and sovereignty of the
peoples.

This process of articulation in permanent construction is dynamic,
comprehensive, popular and decentralized, and seeks greater
coordination among social movements to strengthen popular
mobilizations. From the Assembly of Social Movements we are committed
to expand our work by strengthening processes in Asia, Africa, North
America and Europe.

We consider that one of the main challenges is to strengthen our
platform of common struggles and alternatives in a process that is
reinforced by the regions and seeks global impact.

The Assembly of Social Movements is part of an agenda made up by many
key spaces, including the People’s Summit “Enlazando Alternativas” IV
in Madrid (14-18 May), the Social Forum of the United States, the
Mesoamerican Forum against Agribusiness in El Salvador (3-5 June), the
4^th Social Forum of the Americas in Asuncion (11-15 August), the
International Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations on September 21
and the Global Day of Action against Monsanto (October 16), the 4^th
World Social Forum on Migration in Ecuador (October), the Third
International Action of the World March of Women in Congo (14-17
October) and the mobilization process towards Cancun where the COP 16
will be held. We are also planning to have in October a global week
of action for climate justice, unifying the struggles as the ones
carried out by movements resisting the privatization and
commodification of water in “Blue October.”

We want the Assembly of Social Movements to continue being a dynamic
space to join our processes and actions, and to continue being another
tool to coordinate our struggles.

We hope that the results of this conference in Cochabamba strengthen
the mobilization and resistance process, notably the Global Referendum
on Climate Change, which we must promote, discuss and include in our
movements as an important element to raise awareness towards Cancún
and the People’s Tribunal on Ecological Debt and Climate Justice.

We call the social movements of the continent and the world to promote
a unified and broad mobilization to demand change, denouncing those
responsible for driving the false solutions to the systemic crisis,
including the climate crisis.