Published on 17 November 2014 by Granma Internacional
Latin America is today experiencing new times which, after 10 years of work resulting in undeniable achievements, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) is facing the challenge of consolidating itself, stated the organization’s Executive Secretary Bernardo Álvarez.
The ALBA-TCP has the unique feature of brining together political forces which involved in a common project based on diversity, noted Álvarez in statements to Prensa Latina. “In addition it understands that there are other mechanisms of integration in the hemisphere which play an equally important role, such as the Union of Southern Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,” he commented.
“We aspire to be a political consciousness for the left, for the world, for progress within new Latin American integration, with respect, but doing everything necessary so that the transformation and social agendas are part of debates in Latin American. This is where the challenge lies,” stated Álvarez, adding that, the challenge also consists of continuing to promote and support integration and, to be an expression of this transformative political vision in the heart of Latin America.
The ALBA-TCP emerged as an alternative to the traditional integration structures which existed in the region and, 10 years later, “is today a powerful political alliance which assumes unanimous potions in defense of the rights of mother earth, human rights, against interventionism and war,” and which “evokes and works to preserve and reestablish pace and peoples’ right to self-determination,” he emphasized.
Another of the ALBA-TCP’s great challenges is the creation, together with Petrocaribe and Mercosur, of a Complementary Economic Zone, with the aim of encouraging political and economic ties and promoting the development of complimentary, just and balanced trade, highlighted Álvarez, commenting that, “So far, these 10 years have been positive and serve as motivation to continue moving forward…to broaden the horizons of this mechanism of integration.”
Jamaicans in solidarity with Cuba compiled the below quotes:
See ALBA’s Management Report here: ALBA 2004 – 2014: 10 years consolidating solidarity and integration among the peoples of our Americas.
Roosevelt Skerrit
Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica
“The hope of our peoples was reborn in the hands of presidents Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. The proposal of the Bolivarian alternative for the peoples of our America (ALBA) came to represent the potential launching of our nations’’.
Hugo Chavez Frias
Late President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
‘‘It has occurred to us, to introduce a proposal that could be called the ALBA, the Bolivarian alternative for the peoples of our America. A new concept of integration that is not new at all: It Is about bringing back a dream that we believe is possible, It Is about a new path, It Is about a quest, for integration is certainly vital for us: either we unite or we fail. Let us then choose the alternatives’’.
Evo Morales Ayma
President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia
‘The ALBA, besides being a tool of trade integration, of cooperation, is essentially a political body. In this regard, it is interesting to have a council of social movements, that exists within the organized people, united, and mobilized not only by social but by structural claims’’.
Gaston Browne
Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda
‘Due to the policy of ALBA and Petrocaribe, it has been observed that there is a positive Alternative model of Development that focuses on the human being’’.
Nicolas Maduro Moros
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
‘‘…ALBA is an Alliance of peoples, of revolutionary governments, to consolidate real independence, and to build prosperity upon the basis of independence… ALBA is the result of the struggle of peoples, which in resistance to neoliberal capitalism and its formulas of free trade agreements, created an alternative and transformative vision of integration, based on principles of cooperation, complementarity, solidarity and justice for the union of our America’’.
Daniel Ortega Saavedra
President of the Republic of Nicaragua
“Overcoming the neoliberal model and its effects on the region involves a strategic alliance between the states and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean…’’
Ralph Gonsalves
Prime Minister of Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
“…solidarity, economic complementarity, fair trade, comprehensive cooperation and strict respect of our sovereignty, are the fundamental ideas of ALBA’’.
Rafael Correa
President of the Republic of Ecuador
‘‘… (the) cultural wealth of our peoples, who have managed to overcome adversity, who have never surrendered to oppression, who loathe injustice, are the workers, the peasants, the small business owners, the poets, the lady that sells in the market, the teachers, the farmers; we all have the same right to participate in building the future’’.
Kenny Davis Anthony
Prime Minister of Saint Lucia
“In order to survive in a world that hardly knows the value of friendship, be it historical or otherwise, we have no choice but to widen our circles of solidarity and friendship to secure support for our efforts to develop our Island. In that context, my government believes that the time has come for Saint Lucia to join its sister states of Antigua and Barbuda, set Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica and become a full member of the Bolivarian alliance for the peoples of our America, ALBA
Raul Castro
President of the Republic of Cuba
Committed to social justice – the true independence of the peoples of the region and the aspiration to distribute fairly the immense riches of the Continent it is essentially the historic struggle to realize the embodiment of Bolivar and Marti’s vision of our America.