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AMERICAS: An OAS with Cuba - Or None at All,
Says ALBA
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Apr 17 (IPS) - Cuba, the only
country excluded from the Fifth Summit of
the Americas that opened in Port of Spain on
Friday, received strong backing for its
demand for unconditional talks with the
United States from eight governments of the
region who met in the northeastern
Venezuelan city of Cumaná.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
(ALBA), a bloc made up of Bolivia, Cuba,
Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela,
together with invited representatives from
Ecuador, Paraguay and St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, agreed Thursday to champion
Cuba's cause at the Trinidad and Tobago
summit.
The nearly five-decade U.S. economic embargo
of Cuba, its long-term isolation from the
regional community of nations, and
Washington's demands that it take steps
towards openness and democracy, were
criticised at the Cumaná meeting.
"The so-called Summit of the Americas is no
such thing, because Cuba and Puerto Rico are
absent," said Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega.
The host of the ALBA meeting, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez, stated that he would
veto the summit declaration because it is
"indefensible gibberish," and said he hoped
this fifth summit "will be the last of its
kind."
Chávez also said a new organisation of Latin
American and Caribbean nations should be
created to replace the Organisation of
American States (OAS), a desire shared by
Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Raúl
Castro of Cuba.
Summits of the 34 OAS member states,
including every country in the Americas
except Cuba, have been held since 1994 to
foster a new agenda between the United
States, Canada, Latin America and the
Caribbean. But their main project, the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), collapsed
at the fourth summit, held in Mar del Plata,
Argentina in 2005.
The new U.S. President, Barack Obama, wrote
in an op-ed in the Miami Herald on Thursday:
"This Summit offers the opportunity of a new
beginning. Advancing prosperity, security
and liberty for the people of the Americas
depends upon 21st century partnerships,
freed from the posturing of the past.
"The Summit gives every
democratically-elected leader in the
Americas the opportunity to reaffirm our
shared values," Obama wrote, "and just as
the United States seeks that goal in
reaching out to the Cuban people, we expect
all of our friends in the hemisphere to join
together in supporting liberty, equality,
and human rights for all Cubans."
Chávez read out a news dispatch datelined
Port-au-Prince, reporting U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton as saying that
her country would be prepared to take
"additional steps" - like lifting the
embargo against Cuba - if Cuba were to "open
up its society" to democracy and "release
political prisoners."
Morales recounted his experience of
observing the elections in Cuba, and
astonished the audience by proclaiming
himself a communist and defying the OAS to
expel Bolivia on those grounds.
"Cuba was excluded from the OAS because it
was regarded as incompatible for a
Marxist-Leninist government to belong. Well
then, I declare myself Marxist, Leninist,
communist and socialist. Let's see if they
will expel Bolivia," Morales quipped.
For his part, Paraguayan President Fernando
Lugo said Cuba not only deserved to be
reinstated in the OAS system, but should
also be compensated for the damage it has
suffered.
Paraguay has some interest in organising the
next Summit of the Americas, but with a
critical approach and a different format,
Lugo said.
Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit
said that no excuse or apology was needed
for Cuba to be included in the OAS system.
"Leaving Cuba out is certainly an injustice,
not only for Cuba but for those of us who
are members," he said.
Ralph Goncalves, the prime minister of St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, said the embargo
against Cuba, the last vestige of the Cold
War, should end, and added that he would
work at Port of Spain for the United States
to invite Cuba for talks "without any
preconditions or prerequisites."
Goncalves also announced that St. Vincent
and the Grenadines was joining ALBA as its
seventh member. Ecuador and Haiti are
observer countries at the bloc.
Foreign Minister Fander Falconi of Ecuador
said that the Summit of the Americas draft
declaration "is lukewarm, insipid, and takes
into account neither the global crisis nor
the region's rejection of the blockade
against Cuba."
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said the
problem was not the United States, but Latin
America and the Caribbean for accepting
imposed policies and letting policy-making
spaces be taken over.
In rendering thanks for the support
received, President Castro emphasised that
"the entire planet is opposed to the
blockade, with the exception of the United
States, Israel, which is its main ally, and
a handful of countries that have abstained"
in 17 consecutive annual votes at the United
Nations General Assembly.
He spoke about the involvement and
complicity in political actions against
Latin American countries that his government
attributes to the OAS, and quoted Cuban
liberation hero José Martí (1853-1895),
saying "the North and South seas will join
and a serpent will be born from an eagle's
egg" before Cuba will return to the OAS.
With the United States, on the other hand,
"we are willing to discuss everything,
democracy, freedom of the press, human
rights or political prisoners, but without
casting the smallest shadow on our
sovereignty and right to
self-determination," Castro said.
At the meeting, the members of ALBA and
Ecuador signed a framework agreement to
create a regional currency for the group,
with the acronym SUCRE, in honour of Antonio
José de Sucre (1795-1830), the South
American independence hero who was born in
Cumaná.
The sucre should operate as an accounting
unit from 2010, as "the embryo of a common
physical currency in future, if we want to
free ourselves from the dictatorship of the
dollar," Chávez said.
Meanwhile, Morales proposed the creation of
an ALBA Council for Human Rights, with
representatives designated by each country,
to examine "the global economic policies
that violate human rights and international
policies that violate the right to
self-determination and sovereignty of our
peoples."
It should also "investigate and denounce
media terrorism against our peoples'
governments of liberation," according to the
Bolivian president.
The speeches at Cumaná were also heavily
critical of the measures adopted by the
Group of 20 industrialised and emerging
countries on Apr. 2, "because they do not
solve the inequality or help to overcome the
underdevelopment to which we are condemned,"
according to Castro.
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