Cuba & Venezuela declare ‘Year of Bolivarian Alternative’

By Kris Hamel
Havana, Cuba

On April 27-30, over 1,000 delegates from around the world attended the Fourth Hemispheric Conference on Strug gle Against the FTAA (Free Trade Areas of the Americas) here in Havana.

Delegates came from over 40 countries, the majority from Latin America. The largest grouping of workers and activists came from Mexico, while the next-biggest delegation, over 50 people, came from the United States. Some were unionists and acti vists who came with the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange under threat of criminal charges by the Bush administration.

Washington is trying to make it illegal for U.S. citizens to exercise their constitutional right to travel to Cuba and exchange views with workers from other countries—especially if those countries have rejected capitalism in favor of a more humane system. Activists have vowed to exercise their rights and take on the Bush administration if necessary.

The FTAA is the U.S.-championed plan to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to every country in Central and South America and the Caribbean—except socialist Cuba and, now, Venezuela.

The FTAA, like NAFTA before it, would increase capitalist privatization and dere gulation throughout the Western Hemi sphere. It would cause further lowering of wages, worsened living and environmental conditions, and more poverty and devastation for the people of Latin America.

Cuban President Fidel Castro joined in welcoming the participants in a session chaired by Chilean-Canadian activist and conference organizer Marcela Escribiano. A major victory was declared: The FTAA, despite U.S. braggadocio, did not meet its goal for implementation on Jan. 1 of this year. Because of the anti-FTAA struggles of people throughout the hemisphere, a brake has been placed on the U.S. capitalists’ dreams of further expansion and plunder.

The opening plenary session began with remarks by Osvaldo Martinez, a Cuban economist, who called the FTAA doomed to fail: “It will disappear with shame and without glory as it is incompatible with the national self-determination of the peoples.”

Martinez’s remarks set the groundwork for several days of intense discussion on how to continue the struggle and defeat the FTAA. Workers and activists from Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and every other country in the Americas shared their struggles in an atmosphere of solidarity and fightback.

Castro, Chavez break new ground

This pivotal conference coincided with the First Cuba-Venezuela Meeting on the Application of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which included a major speech by the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias. President Castro greeted Chavez on the night of April 27 at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana. Chavez was accompanied by members of his cabinet as well as hundreds of Vene zuelan students, workers and activists.

President Chavez came to the socialist island to sign ALBA trade accords with Cuba. On April 29 delegates to the anti-FTAA conference attended a special session where Chavez and Castro addressed an audience of 6,000 at the Karl Marx Theater. The two leaders announced the beginning of the implementation of ALBA, a cooperative and non-exploitative trade accord and consortium started in Decem ber 2004. Unlike the FTAA, ALBA will greatly benefit the working people of both countries.

Instead of international trade based on the dominance of big capital and the plundering of other nations’ resources and labor, ALBA is based on mutual benefit, solidarity and increased cooperation and development. “The ALBA,” said Chavez, “can be a concrete model for all the peoples and countries of Latin America who oppose the FTAA.”

The strategic plan drawn up by the two countries states ALBA’s purpose: “… to guarantee the most beneficial productive complementation on the bases of rationality, exploiting existing advantages on one side or the other, saving resources, extending useful employment, access to markets or any other consideration sustained in genuine solidarity that will promote the strengths of the two countries.”

Cuba is a socialist country that has faced over 45 years of a criminal U.S. blockade. It is relatively poor in natural resources but has tremendous human resources, such as doctors and teachers who have placed Cuba at the top of health care and education worldwide.

On the other hand, Venezuela has plen ty of wealth and natural resources, including oil, but working people and the poor have had little or no access to medical care and education.

In Cuba, these services and benefits are considered a right of the people and are completely and universally free of charge. Cuba has already sent over 15,000 medical personnel to Venezuela as well as thousands of volunteers who are teaching the masses to read and write. Venezuela in return is providing much-needed oil, technology and other resources to Cuba.

Health care for all

President Castro reported that 20,000 Venezuelans recovered their vision in Cuba in 2004. This year it is expected that over 100,000 additional Venezuelans will come to Cuba for restorative eye surgery at no cost.

Castro praised President Chavez’s plans to extend health care to the poorest barrios and throughout the entire country. He pointed to the recent creation of over 600 diagnostic medical centers and the plans this year for 600 physical therapy and rehabilitation centers, as well as 35 high-tech medical centers to provide professional medical services free of charge to the Venezuelan population.

The Cuban president spoke excitedly of the program to assist in training 60,000 doctors in order to help with the medical needs of not only Venezuela, but “the world, Latin America, the hundreds of millions that lack medical care.”

The ALBA accords also contain provisions for thousands of Cuban volunteers and educators to assist Venezuela in wiping out illiteracy and raising the educational level of the masses. Soon Venezuela will be able to declare itself the second “illiteracy-free territory” in the Americas, with over 1.46 million Venezuelans having recently learned to read and write.

Cuba and Venezuela will also embark on “the design of a continental project to eliminate illiteracy in Latin America.”

In all, over 45 major accords and agreements were signed by representatives of the two countries. In addition to continuing to provide Venezuela with assistance in the fields of medical care and education, Cuba will initially acquire over $412 million in Venezuelan goods that will be distributed for the purpose of elevating the living standard of Cuban workers while at the same time creating 100,000 new jobs for workers in Venezuela.

The ALBA accords include agreements and contracts relating to tourism, communications, transportation, education, sports, biodiversity, the environment, science and technology, hydraulic resources and construction.

The use and processing of crude oil and its derivatives and other raw materials, railway infrastructure, maritime and agricultural development, and plant and animal health were among the many other areas covered in the ALBA accords.

‘A socialist revolution’

At the special session on April 29, President Chavez, who spoke for almost four hours, also clarified the nature of the Bolivarian process unfolding in his country: “I want to be very clear about something—in Venezuela we call our revolution Bolivarian. But it is a socialist revolution. Bolivarian principles are socialist principles.” A thunderous standing ovation greeted the Venezuelan leader’s affirmation of the struggle for socialism.

It is no wonder the U.S. government has stepped up its attacks on both Cuba and Venezuela and wants to prevent U.S. workers from seeing in person what socialist planning and cooperation are all about.

The profit-hungry capitalist class and its officials in Washington hope to keep the U.S. working class from coming to realize, like their counterparts in Cuba and now Venezuela have, that a better world is indeed possible.

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