The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, today described the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) as a sovereign and progressive initiative, a block to which he is reintegrated.
The regional organization is virtually celebrating its XVIII summit, a space in which Arce unleashed the founding principles of that integration mechanism created 16 years ago by leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.
ALBA was founded “as an instrument of integration, economic, social, political, productive and liberation complementation of our peoples in the fight against imperialism and neoliberalism.”
The president recalled that then the alliance was erected as an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a neoliberal initiative aimed at looting the natural resources of Latin America and the Caribbean.
It is also a reason for the progressive loss of jobs and labor rights, damage to the environment, privatization of resources and services, and the exponential increase in levels of poverty and inequality.
Arce highlighted how at the IV Summit of the Americas, held in the city of Mar del Plata, in 2005, progressive leaders of the continent put a stop to this policy promoted by the United States with the support of neoliberal governments in the region.
He highlighted the imprint of the former presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez; from Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, and from Brazil, Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva.
Also the influence in that position of the then president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, and the impulse that Raúl Castro, the president of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, and the ex-presidents of Bolivia, Evo Morales, and of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, gave to the alliance.
Arce emphasized the importance of his country’s return to the ALBA-TCP one month after the return to democracy one year after the coup that broke the constitutional order.
On October 18, the president recalled in his speech, the people put an end to the coup at the polls, “we returned to ALBA-TCP and now we reaffirm our commitment to the sovereignty and dignity of our peoples,” he said.
The XVIII summit of the integration mechanism analyzes the regional political situation and the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
After its creation, the ALBA-TCP became a platform for exchange and trade between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on the basis of solidarity, complementarity, justice and cooperation.
Source: Prensa Latina
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