SOUTH AMERICA: Mercosur Summit Calls for
Zelaya's Return
By Natalia Ruiz
Díaz
ASUNCION (IPS) - The presidents of
South America's main trade bloc, Mercosur,
demanded at their summit in Paraguay Friday
the unconditional, peaceful return of ousted
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
The Honduran leader, who was deposed by the
military on Jun. 28, briefly crossed the
border into his country Friday. But after
taking just a few symbolic steps into the
country, he returned to Nicaragua, saying he
did not want to be the cause of violence.
At the end of the summit in the Paraguayan
capital, presidents Fernando Lugo of
Paraguay, Cristina Fernández of Argentina,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Tabaré
Vázquez of Uruguay, Michelle Bachelet of
Chile and Evo Morales of Bolivia, as well as
representatives from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
and Venezuela, issued a harshly worded
statement condemning the coup in Honduras.
Mercosur (Southern Common Market) is made up
of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,
while Venezuela is in the process of
becoming the fifth full member. Bolivia,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are
associate members.
The presidents also urged the international
community to continue to refuse to recognise
the de facto regime headed by Roberto
Micheletti or any elections held in Honduras
unless the president is restored to power.
General elections are scheduled to be held
Nov. 29, and Zelaya's term is to end in
January.
Host President Lugo opened the summit with a
call for the need to defend democracy in
Latin America.
Lugo pointed out that until the current
crisis in Honduras, all of the leaders of
Latin America had been elected in free,
transparent elections.
"This is a step backward that our region
cannot tolerate," Lula said.
Vázquez and Bachelet said elections called
by the de facto regime in Honduras should
not be recognised.
"This call to elections by an illegal,
illegitimate government has no legal
standing," said an emphatic Vázquez.
For his part, Morales blamed the crisis on
U.S. foreign policy. "In Latin America there
are foreign groups or agents seeking to
undermine democracy, the rights of the
people, and especially participative
democracy," he said.
The presidents backed the decision reached
early this month by the Organisation of
American States (OAS) to expel Honduras from
the regional body until the constitutional
order is restored.
While the situation in Honduras was the main
focus at the summit, the leaders also
discussed how to deal with the global
economic crisis, and the rotating presidency
passed from Lugo to Vázquez, the presidents
of the bloc's two smallest members.
Paraguay and Uruguay complained about the
protectionist policies adopted by Argentina
and Brazil in the face of the global crisis.
In the past six months, the bloc made no
progress on fundamental integration issues
like the customs union, said Lugo.
Nevertheless, he said he was confident that
Mercosur's institutions could be
strengthened in order to provide guarantees
to the least developed economies.
Lula said the integration process was still
being built, and called for clear policies
towards productive and economic integration
– a position that was backed by Vázquez, who
reiterated Uruguay's confidence in the
process, while underlining the enormous
asymmetries between the bloc's member
states.
One of the priorities on the agenda of the
new Uruguayan rotating presidency is the
elimination of double levying of the common
external tariff that results from passage of
products through more than one Mercosur
country.
Elimination of this double taxation is
opposed by Paraguay, which as the only
landlocked member country would lose out on
significant tax revenue.
Another issue to be tackled are non-tariff
trade barriers within the bloc, which
Vázquez described as "a pathology that we
suffer and that we must try to overcome."
With respect to the H1N1 influenza epidemic,
which has hit Argentina especially hard, the
Mercosur Council decided to ask the World
Health Organisation (WHO) to expand capacity
of production of affordable flu vaccines,
anti-flu medications and diagnostic kits. |
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