7 Years on from the Creation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America’s Trade Agreement for the People (ALBA-TCP)

7 Years on from the Creation of the ALBA -TCP



By Tahina Ojeda Medina - Ciudad CSS

What initially started as an alternative aimed at stopping the advance of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) has been transformed into an alliance in favour of Latin American and Caribbean integration.  I am referring to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America’s Trade Agreement for the People (ALBA-TCP).

It is important to remember the solitary beginnings of ALBA-TCP.  The main goal of the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec was to create the FTAA, and like the majority of hemispheric meetings, the decision to implement a free trade area had already been taken prior to it being “democratically approved”.

The FTAA claimed to create a structure for free trade relations within the framework of the free market, without taking into account economic asymmetries, much less social ones.  This aforementioned structure is evident in the 6th point of discussion for business and investment in the summit’s “plan of action”: countries will “ensure that the negotiations for the FTAA conclude before January 2005 at the latest, so that the agreement might be put into effect as soon as possible, no later than December 2005...”

The only vote against the plan came from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; although the plan was published as having been approved unanimously.

Once they had analysed the kind of injustices that the application of the FTAA would bring to Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba and Venezuela stepped forward and agreed on a plan to put the brakes on this situation.  This is where the idea of the ALBA emerged, against the 2001 FTAA, before it was formally established in 2004 in Havana, Cuba.

The next step to stop the advance of the FTAA was taken at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2005.  The final declaration of this summit read “the necessary conditions to implement a balanced and equal free trade agreement still do not exist, (conditions which ensure) the effective access to markets free of subsidies and distortive business practices, which take into account the needs and sensitivities of all business partners, including in their levels of development and the size of their economies”.  This summit represented a definitive break with the FTAA.

Furthermore, Latin America and the Caribbean’s political map had changed since the FTAA was proposed.  Cuba and Venezuela were no longer alone.  From 2004, the following countries joined the ALBA: Bolivia (2006), Nicaragua (2008), Dominica (2008), Honduras (2008-2010), Ecuador (2009), St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands (2009) and Antigua and Barbuda (2009).  The subcontinent turned to the left, and this turn was met with various destabilisation attempts.  An attempt to create war in 2008 in Bolivia, a state coup in Honduras in 2009, a failed state coup in Ecuador in 2012, amongst other international pressures toward the rest of the region.

Whilst the South was negotiating the various political difficulties arising from setting into motion the mechanisms designed to fight for the protection of the people, the “developed world” sunk into an unprecedented economic crisis created by the “invisible hand of the market”.  These events are not isolated from the political and theoretical debate on contemporary international relations.  When a project like the ALBA-TCP is analysed at an academic level, inevitable questions emerge, such as; is it a scheme aimed at integration?  Is it aiming to construct a regional politics or an intra-regional free-trade agreement?  Is the ALBA-TCP a formula to confront the negative effects of globalisation, or is it a strategy to enter into this process but from a stronger position?

All these questions have answers, which are still vague and somewhat open to debate, if we analyse the process of ALBA’s creation and consolidation from the perspective of theories on new “postliberal” regionalisms in Latin America and their relationship to globalisation.  It is evident that ALBA-TCP was not conceived of as a scheme for regional integration, but rather as a political alliance to put a stop to FTAA which was progressively transformed into a collaborative mechanism which helped to strengthen real cooperation between countries in the regional South.

It is too soon to predict what a final regional integration project in South America would look like, but what we can confirm is that the ALBA has allowed for the creation of new forms of exchange and communication between countries that were once isolated; a first step in exploring a political agenda for integration.  In this sense, ALBA-TCP is a formula for resistance to the project of globalisation.  It is impossible to deny that globalisation is a concrete reality, but it doesn’t mean that countries have to throw themselves into its choppy seas without a lifejacket; the consolidation of strong regions is needed in order to confront the contradictions of the world system in which we live.

The ALBA-TCP, as Maria del Carmen Almendras Camargo defined it in the celebrations for the alliance’s 7th anniversary in Madrid, February 2012, is a “regional integration bloc made up of 8 countries with a population of 71 million inhabitants and a GDP of 498 billion dollars.  It is the second largest trading bloc in the Latin American and Caribbean region after Mercosur, which has enormous human and natural resource potential.”

As ALBA begins to consolidate independently as a definite regional integration scheme, it is mutating and fusing with other integration strategies such as UNASUR and CELAC.  On its 7th anniversary there are a whole host of reasons to celebrate; it has demonstrated that it is possible to say NO to the great global powers and design an independent and sovereign politics which can pave the way to a multi-polar world.  Like the maestro Simón Rodriguez even said himself, we invent or we err.

Tahina Ojeda Medina is a researcher at the Development and Cooperation Institute at the Complutense University in Madrid ((IUDC-UCM), graduate in International Relations and a lawyer from the Central University of Venezuela, M.S in International Cooperation, Masters in Contemporary Latin American Studies and Doctorate in Political Science at the Complutense University in Madrid.

Translated by Rachael Boothroyd for Venezuelanalysis.com

Source: Ciudad CCS

May 7th 2012

Creation of Community of Latin American and Caribbean States: a historically significant event

• States Raúl, addressing the Summit of Latin American and Caribbean Unity, which ended on Tuesday • Two declarations and eight special documents adopted, including a condemnation of the U.S. blockade of Cuba

Lazaro Barredo Medina

RIVIERA MAYA, Mexico.— The creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is a historically significant event, and we believe it appropriate to strive to promptly define its statutes and mode of functioning, so that they cover the collective interest in the greater integration and unity of our region, Cuban President Raúl Castro Ruz said on Tuesday, Feb. 24, in addressing the Unity Summit’s final session.

Raúl’s speech was closely followed by those present in the large auditorium, and he made a number of points that were later referred to by other speakers.

The Summit ended on Tuesday after two declarations were approved: the Declaration of Cancun, and the Declaration of the Unity Summit, which establish the main programmatic commitments to political and economic coordination and cooperation. In addition, eight special documents were passed on: migratory cooperation; solidarity with Haiti; a declaration on the Malvinas issue, backing Argentina’s legitimate rights in its dispute with the UK; and a special communiqué, supporting Argentina’s demands regarding hydrocarbon exploration on the continental platform, in terms of the persistent unilateral British actions.

The summit also passed a declaration on Guatemala, congratulating that country for the outcome of investigations by the International Commission against Impunity, which cleared President Alvaro Colom of any responsibility for the death of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg in 2009.

Likewise, the meeting passed a resolution supporting the Ecuadorian initiative known as Yusuní-ITT, a voluntary gesture on the part of Ecuador not to exploit 846 million barrels of oil that lie under the subsoil of the Yasuní National Park, to benefit the environment and ensure the conservation "of one of the places of most biodiversity in the world." Another document expresses solidarity with Ecuador after the Financial Action Task Force included it, in a manipulative move, on the list of countries that have failed to adequately address money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Other resolutions include a condemnation of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba.

In listing the underlying principles of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Mexican President Felipe Calderón said the new organization "should prioritize the advancement of regional integration with a view to promoting our sustainable development, advancing our regional agenda in global forums, and having a better position in response to relevant world events."

Likewise, he announced that in July 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela, the various government representatives are to define the guidelines of the new bloc, which is to comprise the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit. In 2012, they will meet again in Chile, the country that assumed the rotating presidency of the Rio Group for the next two years in a ceremony in which President Michelle Bachellet bid farewell to the other presidents and introduced her successor, Sebastián Piñera, who spoke briefly, reaffirming his commitment to take forward the summit’s agreements.

Outgoing Costa Rican President Oscar Arias also bid farewell to those present, with a speech whose tone was somewhat pessimistic regarding the new Latin American and Caribbean coordination organization. He also made contradictory statements which, using certain sophisms in defense of democracy, expressed potentially divisive opinions which focused conflicts evidently on nations that have put up the greatest ideological and political resistance in recent years.

On that, shortly afterward, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called upon his colleagues to always take an optimistic attitude: "There is no reason at all for us to be pessimists," he said.

The Brazilian president addressed a number of issues, and questioned the United Nations for its lack of decisiveness in relation Argentina’s sovereignty in its conflict with Britain over the Malvinas Islands, and he asked for a discussion of the role and composition of the Security Council, which, he said, represents the geopolitical interests of World War II, "and fails to take into account the changes that have happened in the world."

Another issue extensively addressed by Lula was the recent Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, where, Brazil, China and India stated their belief that "it is possible to find a new formula to reach an agreement."

"The rich countries like the United States and the European Union have to take into account the interests of Africa and Latin America in making decisions to mitigate global warming," he affirmed.

At the end of the session, the Cuban delegation remained for some time in the auditorium to attend to various heads of state and government, as well as other important figures, officials and delegation members who approached the Cubans to greet them, exchange opinions and take photos with Raúl. Almost the last to leave, Raúl and President Hugo Chávez walked away chatting like brothers, greeted by many people, including security personnel, journalists and hotel workers.

Translated by Granma International

February 24, 2010

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