A UN pedigree, under UN power: examining the FTAA's Tripartite Committee and following the money trail back to the United Nations exposes the UN's behind-the-scenes control.

It was clear from the initial Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994 that the FTAA would be completely an instrument to advance the world government agenda of the United Nations on the hemispheric level. The summit produced two documents, a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action. The declaration proclaims: "We reiterate our firm adherence to the principles of international law and the purposes and principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter.... " It also pledges to "advance and implement the commitments made at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development" (the radical Earth Summit), which launched a host of dangerous frauds, including Agenda 21, the incredible scheme to micromanage the entire planet and all human activity). The Miami Plan of Action promises that FTAA governments will "cooperate fully with all United Nations" agreements and "give serious consideration to ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child."

This pattern has been followed at all subsequent FTAA summits, with pledges to ratify and implement virtually every UN treaty and convention, as well as the UN's Millennium Development Goals and other socialist programs and wealth redistribution schemes. But the UN-FTAA connection goes far beyond mere pledges and rhetoric.

Crucial to understanding the UN's role in the entire FTAA process is an awareness of the Tripartite Committee. This body that has been in charge of organizing, guiding, and overseeing the Summits of the Americas since 1998. It will serve as the executive brain of the FTAA should the FTAA be adopted.

The Tripartite Committee also provides financial and technical assistance to the summits and the many Ministerial Meetings and Negotiating Group Meetings that prepare national delegations and leaders for the summits. It also guides, and is virtually the only source of funding for, the FTAA Administrative Secretariat. But the FTAA is not supposed to be a functioning entity; how can it already have an Administrative Secretariat? This is a UN operation, remember. The UN has no constitutional restrictions or accountability. And it can use our money to lobby us for a new bureaucracy that they're already treating as a fait accompli. The Administrative Secretariat was established first in Panama City, then Puebla, Mexico. Miami, Florida is campaigning to be the permanent home for the planned FTAA bureaucracy.

The Tripartite Committee is composed of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Organization of American States, and the Inter-American Development Bank. ECLAC was created by the UN's Economic and Social Council in 1948 and is an official agency of the UN. On its own website, ECLAC refers to itself as "one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations."

The second member of the Tripartite Committee, the OAS, is identified in its founding charter as a "regional agency" of the UN. The same charter states that OAS member states resolve "to persevere in the noble undertaking that humanity has conferred upon the United Nations, whose principles and purposes they solemnly reaffirm." The Inter-American Development Bank, while not an official agency of the UN, nevertheless is a reliable sidekick to the UN-affiliated multilateral lending agencies, the IMF and World Bank, which virtually dictate policy to Latin America's hopelessly indebted and bankrupt countries.

The FTAA is thus merely a regional administrative arm of the UN, and the Tripartite Committee is the smoking gun that exposes this otherwise concealed subservience. But there's much more. The UN's influence in the FTAA process is enormous, beginning with the fact that it has hordes of administrators, experts, and advisers operating throughout the hemisphere from UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and other international agencies. These agencies and personnel participate directly in the FTAA meetings and programs and have official partnerships with the FTAA and other hemispheric groups involved in the FTAA process. UNESCO, for example, is in charge of writing several education programs for Latin America.