Chavez, ALBA trade group slams Americas summit18 April, 2009
CUMANA, Venezuela (AFP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
and fellow leftist members of his regional trade group ALBA
slammed a summit Thursday of Latin American leaders for
excluding Cuba and not resolving the region's economic
woes.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) summit
was held to coincide with the two-day Summit of the
Americas in Trinidad and Tobago that welcomes US President
Barack Obama, amid signs of a thaw in 50 years of US-Cuban
relations.
The presidents of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and
new member Dominica said the Summit of the America's draft
final statement is "insufficient and unacceptable" because
it does not mention the region's near unanimous rejection
of the US economic blockade of Cuba.
Read out loud by Chavez, the ALBA text said the Americas
summit statement also fails "to address the issues of the
global economic crisis."
"We contend there's no consensus for adopting that draft
statement and we propose an exhaustive debate," Chavez
said. With the exception of Cuba, the ALBA members were to
attend the Americas summit in nearby Trinidad and Tobago
after meeting here.
In keeping with ALBA's leftist charter, Chavez said the
first order of discussion in the debate should be how
"capitalism is bringing about the end of humanity and the
planet."
Cuba is not included among the 34 countries meeting at the
Summit of the Americas, and is also excluded from the
Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS).
However, in another sign of warming regional relations
toward Cuba, OAS Secreary General Jose Miguel Insulza
announced at the Americas summit on Friday that he will ask
the OAS General Assembly meeting in June to revoke the OAS
resolution excluding Cuba.
US-Cuban relations have also improved since Obama took
office in January.
Obama last week lifted travel and money transfer
restrictions for Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba,
and only hours before the summit of the Americas opened US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said 50 years of US
policy on Cuba had "failed."
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro earlier this week
both expressed their willingness to open talks.
Despite these encouraging signs, Chavez at the ALBA summit,
referring to Obama, said "we must demand that he abide by
United Nations resolutions" and lift the 47-year economic
embargo on Cuba.
The Summit of the Americas is expected to issue a general
call for lifting the US embargo.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega chipped in, calling the
US embargo "a real genocide" and dismissed the Summit of
the Americas as useless.
"You can't call that summit 'of the Americas' because Cuba
and Puerto Rico are missing," Ortega said, lending support
also to the US territory's independence movement.
ALBA was founded in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba as a
counterweight to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
that the United States and several Latin American nations
were proposing at the time.
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