Jesal — Document of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas
Topic(s): communism | Comments Off on Jesal — Document of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our AmericasIntroduction
The following statement was issued on April 17 by six of the seven governments of the ALBA economic and social alliance in Latin America. (The seventh member, Ecuador, was unable to attend the meeting.) Speaking in Australia,
Luis Bilbao, editor of the monthly magazine América XXI (published in Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay),
described the statement as “profound” and “historic.”
“We have seven governments of the world speaking in language that used to be the reserve of left parties only,” Bilbao said. “Gone is diplomatic language to discuss the political and economic
situation facing Latin America and the Caribbean and their relation with the United
States.
Instead, we read that the draft statement of the
Summit of the Americas is
considered ‘inadequate and unacceptable.’ The ALBA countries declare that an
entirely different approach to the world’s problems is required.
“In opposition
to the Summit
statement is a radical and far-reaching declaration of anti-capitalism and
socialism. This is something which the world’s left wing parties must make
known to the peoples of the world.”
Document of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas
(ALBA) countries for the 5th Summit of the Americas
Cumaná, April 17, 2009
The heads of state and governments of Bolivia,
Cuba, Dominica, Honduras,
Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider
that the proposed Declaration of the 5th Summit
of the Americas
is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:
– It offers no answers to the issue of the Global Economic Crisis, despite the
fact that this constitutes the largest challenge faced by humanity in decades
and the most serious threat in the current epoch to the wellbeing of our
peoples.
– It unjustifiably excludes Cuba
in a criminal manner, without reference to the general consensus that exists in
the region in favour of condemning the blockade and the isolation attempts,
which its people and government have incessantly objected to.
For these reasons, the member countries of ALBA consider that consensus does
not exist in favour of adopting this proposed declaration and in light of the
above; we propose to have a thoroughgoing debate over the following issues:
1) Capitalism is destroying humanity and the planet. What we are living through
is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural character and not just
one more cyclical crisis. Those who think that this crisis will be resolved
with an injection of fiscal money and with some regulatory measures are very
mistaken.
The financial system is in crisis because it is quoting the value of financial
paper at six times the real value of goods and services being produced in the
world. This is not a “failure of the regulation of the system” but
rather a fundamental part of the capitalist system that speculates with all
goods and values in the pursuit of obtaining the maximum amount of profit
possible. Until now, the economic crisis has created 100 million more starving
people and more than 50 million new unemployed people, and these figures are
tending to increasing.
2) Capitalism has provoked an ecological crisis by subordinating the necessary
conditions for life on this planet to the domination of the market and profit.
Each year, the world consumes a third more than what the planet is capable of
regenerating. At this rate of wastage by the capitalist system, we are going to
need two planets by the year 2030.
3) The global economic, climate change, food and energy crises are products of
the decadence of capitalism that threatens to put an end to the existence of
life and the planet. To avoid this outcome it is necessary to develop an
alternative model to that of the capitalist system. A system based on:
* Solidarity and complementarity and not competition;
* A system in harmony with our Mother Earth rather than the looting of our
natural resources;
* A system based on cultural diversity and not the crushing of cultures and
impositions of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our
countries:
* A system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist wars and
policies;
* In synthesis, a system that restores the human condition of our societies and
peoples rather than reducing them to simple consumers or commodities.
4) As a concrete expression of the new reality on the continent, Latin American
and Caribbean countries have begun to construct their own institutions, whose
roots lie in the common history that goes back to our independence revolution,
and which constitutes a concrete instrument for deepening the processes of
social, economic and cultural transformation that will consolidate our
sovereignty. The ALBA-TCP [TCP – Peoples Trade Agreement], Petrocaribe and
UNASUR [Union of South American Nations], to only cite the most recently
created one, are mechanisms for solidarity-based union forged in the heat of
these transformations, with the manifest intention of strengthening the efforts
of our peoples to reach their own liberation.
In order to confront the grave effects of the global economic crisis, the
ALBA-TCP countries have taken innovative and transformational measures that
seek real alternatives to the deficient international economic order, rather
than strengthening these failed institutions. That is why we have set in motion
a Single System of Regional Compensation, the SUCRE, that includes a Common Accounting
Unit, a Payments Clearing House and a Single System of Reserves.
At the same time, we have promoted the establishment of grand national
companies in order to satisfy the fundamental necessities of our peoples,
implementing mechanisms of just and complementary trade, that leave to one side
the absurd logic of unrestrained competition.
5) We question the G20’s decision to triple the amount of resources going to
the International Monetary Fund, when what is really necessary is the
establishment of a new world economic order that includes the total
transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO [World Trade Organisation],
who with their neoliberal condition have contributed to this global economic
crisis.
6) The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new
international financial architecture should be adopted with the participation
of the 192 countries that between June 1 and 3 will meet at a United Nations
conference about the international financial crisis, in order to propose the
creation of a new international economic order.
7) In regards to the climate change crisis, the developed countries have an
ecological debt to the world, because they are responsible for 70% of historic
emissions of carbon accumulated in the atmosphere since 1750.
The developed countries, in debt to humanity and the planet, should contribute
significant resources towards a fund so that the countries on the path towards
development can undertake a model of growth that does not repeat the grave
impacts of capitalist industrialisation.
8) The solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises have to be
integral and interdependent. We cannot resolve a problem creating others in the
areas fundamental to life. For example, generalising the use of agrofuels can
only impact negatively on the price of food and in the utilisation of essential
resources such as water, land and forests.
9) We condemn discrimination against migrants in all its forms. Migration is a
human right, not a crime. Therefore, we demand an urgent reform to the
migration policies of the United
States government, with the objective of
halting deportations and mass raids, allowing the reunification of families,
and we demand the elimination of the wall that divides and separates us, rather
than uniting us.
In this sense, we demand the repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act and the
elimination of the policies of Wetbacks-Drybacks, which has a discriminatory
and selective character, and is the cause of loss of human lives.
Those that are truly to blame for the financial crisis are the bankers that
steal money and the resources of our countries, not migrant workers. Human
rights come first, particularly the human rights of the most unprotected and
marginalised sectors of our society, as undocumented workers are.
For there to be integration there must be free circulation of people, and equal
human rights for all regardless of migratory status. Brain drain constitutes a
form of looting of qualified human resources by the rich countries.
10) Basic services such as education, health, water, energy and
telecommunications have to be declared human rights and cannot be the objects
of private business nor be commodified by the World Trade Organisation. These
services are and should be essential, universally accessible public services.
11) We want a world where all countries, big and small, have the same rights
and empires do not exist. We oppose intervention. Strengthen, as the only
legitimate channel for discussion and analysis of bilateral and multilateral
agendas of the continent, the base of mutual respect between states and
governments, under the principal of non-interference of one state over another
and the inviolability of the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples.
We demand that the new government of the United States, whose inauguration
has generated some expectations in the region and the world, put an end to the
long and nefarious tradition of interventionism and aggression that has
characterised the actions of the governments of this country throughout its
history, especially brutal during the government of George W. Bush.
In the same way, we demand that it eliminate interventionist practices such as
covert operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at destabilising states
and governments, and the financing of destabilising groups. It is fundamental
that we construct a world in which a diversity of economic, political, social
and cultural approaches are recognised and respected.
12) Regarding the United States blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of this
country from the Summit of the Americas, the countries of the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) reiterates the position that all the
countries of Latin America and the Caribbean adopted last December 16, 2008,
regarding the necessity of putting an end to the economic, trade and financial
blockade imposed by the government of the United States of America against
Cuba, including the application of the denominated Helms-Burton law and that
among its paragraphs notes:
“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General
Assembly on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial, and financial
embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba and the decisions on the latter
approved at several international meetings,
“DECLARE that in defence of free trade and the transparent practice of
international trade, it is unacceptable to apply unilateral coercive measures
that will affect the well-being of nations and obstruct the processes of
integration.
“WE REJECT the implementation of laws and measures that contradict
International Law such as the Helms-Burton law and urge the U.S. Government to
put an end to its implementation.
“WE ASK the U.S. Government to comply with the 17 successive resolutions
approved at the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic,
commercial and financial embargo it has imposed on Cuba.”
Moreover, we believe that the attempt to impose isolation on Cuba, which today
is an integral part of the Latin American and Caribbean region, is a member of
the Rio Group and other organisations and regional mechanisms, that carries out
a policy of cooperation and solidarity with the people of the region, that
promotes the full integration of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples, has
failed, and that, therefore, no reason exists to justify its exclusion from the
Summit of the Americas.
13) The developed countries have allocated no less than $8 trillion towards
rescuing the financial structure that has collapsed. They are the same ones
that do not comply with spending a small sum to reach the Millennium Goals or
0.7% of GDP for Official Development Aid. Never before have we seen so nakedly
the hypocrisy of the discourse of the rich countries. Cooperation has to be
established without conditions and adjusted to the agendas of the receiving
countries, simplifying the procedures, making resources accessible and
privileging issues of social inclusion.
14) The legitimate struggle against narco-trafficking and organised crime, and
any other manifestation of the denominated “new threats,” should not
be utilised as excuses for carrying out acts of interference or intervention
against our countries.
15) We are firmly convinced that change, which all the world is hoping for, can
only come about through the organisation, mobilisation and unity of our
peoples.
As the Liberator well stated: “The unity of our peoples is not simply the
chimera of men, but an inexorable fate”- Simón Bolívar.