Actualité - 5TH ALBA Summit reinforces integration

TINTORERO, Lara, Venezuela April 29.—At a remove from all protocol and in the presence of social movements from 20 countries of the continent, the 5th Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) ended here after two days of exchange.

Although the event took place in the Trinitarias Hotel main salon in Barquisimeto, capital of the western state of Lara, the participating heads of state and government affirmed that no integration is possible without unity of the peoples, and thus decided to close the summit in the neighboring area of Tintorero, alongside delegates to a meeting of social organizations.

The Summit ended with the signing of a far-reaching strategic plan and a political statement that includes a condemnation of the release of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Presidents Evo Morales (Bolivia), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), and Carlos Lage, vice president of the Cuban Council of State, accompanied Bolivarian leader President Hugo Chavez.

Also invited as guests were René Préval, president of Haiti; María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuadorian foreign minister; and delegations from Uruguay, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the Commonwealth of Dominica.

Those present highlighted the solidarity of the Cuban people and President Fidel Castro. “Fidel is here, at the helm,” Chávez affirmed; “the country most attacked by imperialism is the one that is most in solidarity with the peoples,” added Evo Morales; and Daniel Ortega concluded that Cuba’s resistance “has been a determining factor for our struggles.”

The first ALBA Summit took place in Havana on December 14, 2004, when leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez signed its founding statement. The others were in 2005 and 2006, likewise in the Cuban capital, and the fourth in January in Nicaragua when this nation joined the integrationist initiative.

(Granma International, par Ronald Suárez Rivas)