Fidel Castro Calls for Solidarity at MERCOSUR Summit
Cuban President Fidel Castro on Friday called the member countries of MERCOSUR to boost solidarity for the sake of subregional integration, and offered the Island´s cooperation to achieve that goal.

The countries with more resources can cooperate with those having less, the Cuban statesman told the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile at the 30th MERCOSUR Summit.

Fidel Castro wondered why Latin America cannot integrate like Europe, and recalled that it was possible there because of the solidarity of the biggest (countries) with the smallest ones.

He noted that the only thing the region needs is human capital, something that, according to him, is abundant in Latin America.

In that regard, he offered Cuba´s expertise in education, public health and electricity saving, which could be implemented with few resources, he added.

In the field of education, he highlighted the good results of the Cuban literacy method "Yo si puedo" (Yes, I Can), which has been implemented in Venezuela, where 1.5 million people learned how to write and read.

He went on to say that the program is also being implemented with promising results in Bolivia, where Cuban and Venezuelan experts are working in that field.

The president also referred to the good results of "Operation Miracle", which is sponsored by Cuba and Venezuela to provide free eye care in the subregion and which has restored vision to tens of thousands of people.

Two years after this program was kicked off, 261,034 Latin American and Caribbean patients have been treated, excluding those who underwent surgery in Venezuela, he added.

Fidel Castro underlined that the program also involves the creation of facilities in other countries of the region to provide that kind of assistance, like in the case of Bolivia, where 100,000 patients can be operated on every year at eight ophthalmologic centers.

He explained that the original project was aimed at performing more than 600,000 surgeries a year, restoring vision to six million people in this part of the world.

Those estimates, he added, are insufficient when we know that more than 30 million Latin Americans need that kind of service, a challenge that can be met with will and integration.

Fidel Castro pointed out that nearly 30,000 Cuban doctors are rendering their services in several parts of the world, while more than 17,000 youths from other countries are studying medicine at the Latin American Medical School in Havana.

A lot can be done, he stressed, to reduce the infant mortality rate south of the Bravo River. He noted that in Cuba, that indicator is currently at 5.6 deaths per every 1,000 live births, even lower than that of the United States.

In another part of his speech, Fidel Castro referred to the complex panorama of world economy, as a result of high fuel prices, so an energy-saving policy must be implemented.

He said that this is a field in which a lot can be done, using new technologies and making rational use of resources. He offered participants Cuba´s expertise in what the country has called the Energy Revolution.

Fidel Castro expressed satisfaction with what he considered the strengthening of MERCOSUR. That was precisely the reason why we traveled, he assured, adding that he was happy of visiting the Argentine city of Cordoba (north), because he has verified that the (integration) process is not in crisis.

On Friday, MERCOSUR and Cuba signed an economic complementation agreement, which is aimed at boosting trade by reducing or eliminating tariffs and restrictions on the negotiated products.