[Shadow_Group] Commitment to join forces to reconstruct Haiti

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

(Hugo Chavez says that the soldiers should be pulled
from Haiti and they should be replaced by doctors
and teachers. These discussions should be understood
as steps toward a deeper understanding of the need
for Latin American integration. Quite interesting.)
====================================================

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. November 11, 2004

RIO SUMMIT

Commitment to join forces to reconstruct Haiti

BY MARIA VICTORIA VALDES-RODDA
—Granma International staff writer—

AFTER underlining the need to promote multilateralism in
international politics at the hour of confronting current
global conflicts and issues, the final declaration of the
18th Rio Summit has committed itself to supporting the
social and economic reconstruction of Haiti.

Considering that pacification is an essential condition for
genuine progress in this Caribbean nation’s present crisis,
the 19 members of the Rio Group agreed to send more troops
to Port-au-Prince.

The initiative was presented by Brazil, as acting secretary
of the Coordination and Political Concentration Mechanism,
and chief of the UN troops stationed in Haiti after the
overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide’s constitutional
government. The UN military contingent, with 6,700 soldiers
on the island, is made up of a group of Latin American
countries.

The document, signed in Rio de Janeiro on November 6,
emphasizes the challenges lying ahead for Haitians who have
the solidarity of Latin America. Some experts have pointed
out that the most relevant approach expressed at the summit
is the conviction that Haiti should be guaranteed the
opportunity of defining its political future by its own
means and in line with popular will.

REPLACE TROOPS WITH DOCTORS AND TEACHERS, SAYS CHAVEZ

According to the text, the principle of “shared
responsibility” specifies that this should be a cooperative
effort in the military, economic, and political sectors.
However, even if the decision to send in a peace force was
approved by consensus as well as through the mediation of
the Rio Group, Hugo Chávez has proposed replacing soldiers
with doctors, teachers, technicians and other people who
could bring assistance.

In a speech at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,
the Venezuelan president affirmed that the Latin American
organization should distance itself from the approaches
taken by the UN and the OAS in Haiti, and characterize
itself by a more humane position which, in the end, will
bring the much desired and procrastinated progress to this
sister nation.

Venezuela is the only country within the Rio Group that
does not recognize the present Haitian cabinet, as its
position is to undertake an in-depth study of the
circumstances that forced Aristide to leave the country, as
well as the role of the invading US troops. CARICOM, the
Caribbean Community, has adopted the same position.

INTEGRAL REFORM OF THE UN

The members of the Rio Group (established in December 18,
1986): Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, reviewed political
and economic conditions worldwide. Considered as a venue
for fostering communication and personal relationships
between heads of state and government, as well as among
foreign ministers in the hemisphere, the summit fully
discussed the role of the important institution that is the
UN.

“The new international circumstances urgently demand both
the strengthening and integral reform of the UN, where it
is essential to make effective, democratic, representative,
and transparent changes that would restructure its General
Assembly, Security Council and Social and Economic
Council,” the plenary noted.

The summit also demanded of the IMF a “more flexible
treatment,” with a commitment to achieve higher levels of
“austerity” in public expenses in order to provide more
margin for welfare as well as projects and programs to
combat hunger.

It is well known that certain Latin American countries will
be facing the demands of the IMF before the end of the
year. Argentina and Brazil, for instance, are evaluating
different ways of “developing a joint approach.”

Rafael Bielsa, the Argentine minister of foreign affairs,
underlined that the international financial institutions
“must understand that investments destined to relieve the
social debt cannot be accounted as expenses.”

CRITICISMS AGAINST REGIONAL IMPOVERISHMENT

Many of the speeches at the summit focused on the poverty
and hunger that is lashing the region. Luis Inácio Lula da
Silva once again recalled the millions of people living on
the verge of starvation.

Chávez supported Lula’s call to reach the “zero poverty”
goal by 2021. He urged those present to have recourse to
“genuinely popular democracies, participative and
egalitarian, where everyone is equal in reality, and not
only in word¼we must replace the current models with one
that is based on a social and humane economy that produces
wealth but also distributes it equally among everybody.” In
its concluding text, the summit also agreed to join forces
in this battle to promote equality, social wellbeing and
the development of each one of the Latin American and
Caribbean nations.

In a separate session, the 18th summit considered
individual concerns: the Ecuadoran government’s ability to
continue governing the country in the wake of petitions to
impeach President Lucio Gutiérrez, the claims against
President Enrique Bolaños for his poor management of
Nicaragua, and Costa Rican corruption reaching the highest
levels ever. The summit agreed to follow through these
problems within a framework of respect for national
decisions.

SOUTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY OF NATIONS

Prior to the next session on December 9 in Ayacucho, Peru,
the Rio Group gave the green light to the initiative of the
South American Community of Nations.

Supporting the initiative, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso
Amorim stated that this is “a new association to reinforce
negotiations in the region to improve our position in
negotiations with other large economic blocs, including the
FTAA and the European Union areas.”

This community should join the two principal regional
blocs: the Andean Community of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru and Venezuela, and the MERCOSUR, composed of
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The new
association will bring together approximately 361 million
people.

In essence, this association, to be constituted in early
2005, is expected to integrate the region politically,
economically and commercially (including energy and
communications projects) and to “reinforce this integration
by attaining South American unity, subsequently to be
extended to Latin America as a whole.”





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