On the
occasion of celebrating the 5th Summit of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America –ALBA-
and the first anniversary of the Treaty of Commerce of the
Peoples (TCP), Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Evo Morales Ayma;
President of the Republic of Bolivia, Carlos Lage Dávila,
Vice-president of the Council of State of the Republic of
Cuba; Daniel Ortega Saavedra, President of the Republic of
Nicaragua; all representatives of the member countries of
ALBA; and with the presence of René Preval, President of the
Republic of Haití; Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Minister of
External Relations of Ecuador; Reginald Austrie, Minister of
Energy and Public Works of the Commonwealth of Dominica;
Assim Martin, Minister of Public Works, Transportation,
Post-Office and Energy of the Federation of St. Kitts-Nevis;
Julian Francis, Minister of Housing, Informal Human
Settlements, Physical Planning and Land of St. Vincent and
the Grenadines, and Eduardo Bonomi, Minister of Labour and
Social Security of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, as
special guests and observers in this Summit, held on April
28th and 29th, 2007, carried out a
complete assessment of the development of programmes and
projects approved in the First ALBA Strategic Plan, as well
as the actions of cooperation and integration deployed
during 2006 in the Republic of Bolivia and the Republic of
Nicaragua and the brother countries of the Caribbean.
In the
course of the debate held in a fraternal ambiance, we ratify
the idea that the leading principle of the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, is the most
ample solidarity among the peoples
of Latin America and the Caribbean, devoid of selfish
nationalism and restrictive national policies that may deny
the objective of building the Great Fatherland dreamt by the
heroes of our emancipatory struggles.
The integration and the union of Latin America and the
Caribbean in the context of an independent model of
development that prioritizes regional economic
complementarities, crystallizes the will to promote the
development of all and strengthens a genuine cooperation
based on mutual respect and solidarity, is no longer a
chimera, but a tangible reality that has manifested in these
years in the programmes of literacy and health-care allowing
thousands of Latin Americans to advance in the path towards
actually overcoming poverty; in energy and financial
cooperation to the Caribbean countries, which is definitely
contributing to the progress of these brother countries; in
the sustained increase of the balanced and fair trade
between Cuba and Venezuela, and in the series of mixed
enterprises established between both countries in several
productive areas; in the important support of direct
financing to Bolivia to accomplish several social programmes,
in the series of identified projects to constitute
bi-national mixed enterprises; in the whole process to
promote support to the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua,
which in scarce months is producing highly positive effects
in the areas of electric generation, agriculture production,
supply of goods for industries, among other areas.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America,
sustained on the principles of solidarity, genuine
cooperation and complementarities among our countries, on
the rational benefit and for the purpose of the welfare of
our peoples of their natural resources –including its energy
potential-, in the integral and intensive training of the
human capital that requires our development, and attending
to the needs and aspirations of our men and women, has
demonstrated its strength and feasibility as a fair
alternative to face neo-liberalism and inequity.
ALBA is demonstrating with concrete statistics that free
trade is not capable of generating the required social
changes, and that political will is more effective to
sustain the conscious definition of action programmes
oriented towards eradicating the social drama of millions of
human beings in our continent.
In view of the afore expressed, the Heads of State of Cuba,
Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, representing their
respective peoples, reaffirmed their determination to
continue advancing and deepening the construction of ALBA,
in the understanding that this alternative constitutes a
strategic political alliance, which fundamental purpose in
the mid-term is to produce structural transformations in the
economic and social structures of the nations that integrate
it to crystallize a shared development, capable of
guaranteeing the successful and sustainable insertion in the
process of production and interaction of the current world,
to place politics and economics in the service of human
beings.
In the context of its design, ALBA constitutes the first
historic effort to construct a global Latin American Project
from a favourable political position. Since the Cuban
Revolution, the progressive forces of the continent, either
from the opposition or from the power, had accumulated
forces to resist the offensive of the empire (Cuba is the
exception because it not only succeeded in surviving, but in
building a qualitatively superior society, deploying at the
same time a transcendent work of internationalist support to
the most impoverished countries, in the midst of a horrid
blockage by the North American imperialism); it is with the
birth of ALBA that the revolutionary forces have been able
to move forth to a new situation that can be defined as an
accumulation of the necessary political strength to
consolidate the change produced in the co-relation of
political forces of our continent.
New perspectives of integration and fusion are opening up as
a part of the qualitative leap promoted by the profound
cooperation bonds that we have established in these years.
Consequently, we are committed to carry forth the
construction of economic and productive spaces of a new
type, that produce greater benefits for our peoples, through
the rational use of our peoples resources and assets, for
which it is required to advance in the creation of Great
National enterprises, establishing and consolidating the
necessary normative and institutional agreements for
cooperation; designing joint Great National strategies and
programmes of all of our countries in areas, such as
education, health, energy, communication, transportation,
housing, public roads, food, among others; promoting in a
conscious and organized manner the expansion of the Treaty
of Commerce of the Peoples with fair and balanced
interactions; carrying out programmes for the rational use
of renewable and non-renewable energy resources,
constructing a food security strategy programme common to
all our nations; expanding the cooperation in human
resources training; and creating new structures to
strengthen the financing capacity of our Great National
projects.
They reiterated their conviction that only one process of
integration among the peoples of Our America that considers
the level of development of each country and guarantees that
all nations benefit from this process, will permit to
overcome the degrading spiral of under-development imposed
on our region.
In this V Summit we have observed with great joy the content
of the Political Declaration signed on February 17th, in St.
Vincent and the Grenadines by the Prime Ministers Roosevelt
Skerrit, of the Commonwealth of Dominica; Ralph Gonsálves,
of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Winston Baldwin Spencer,
of Antigua and Barbuda and Hugo Chávez Frías, President of
the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in which they express
their will to propitiate the most profound cooperation and
unity between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the
States signatories of the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Peoples of Our America and the Treaty of Commerce of the
Peoples, so that their social benefits and the possibilities
for a sustainable economic development with independence and
sovereignty be equal to all, which is beginning to
materialize with the presence in this 5th Summit
of our Caribbean brothers.
The Heads of State and Government of Cuba, Venezuela,
Bolivia and Nicaragua, agreed to subscribe the present
Declaration with the conviction that it opens the path
towards a new phase of strategic consolidation and political
progress of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of
Our America (ALBA), in the historic perspective to realize
the dreams of our Liberators for the construction of the
Latin American and Caribbean Great Fatherland.
Signed in the city of Barquisimeto, Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, on the 29th day of the month of April
of 2007.
For the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez Frías
President of the Republic
For the Government of the Republic of Bolivia
Evo Morales
President of the Republic
For the Republic of Cuba
