Latin Americans Cement Left Alliance

[Ryan Ruck]

Latin Americans Cement Left Alliance

Leftist leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia on Saturday signed a comprehensive integration agreement and trade accord cast as an alternative to U.S. plans for a free-trade pact with the Latin American region.

Bolivian President Evo Morales signed on to a year-old political, social and economic integration agreement between Cuba and Venezuela dubbed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

The accord gives Cuba preferential financing for Venezuelan oil and payment for services of more than 30,000 Cuban doctors and other professionals working in Venezuela. It has helped Cuba emerge from the economic crisis that followed the demise of the Soviet Union, its former benefactor.

Morales, along with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, signed a second agreement under which Cuba and Venezuela will eliminate all tariffs on Bolivian products.

Venezuela agreed to provide "all the energy resources Bolivia needs" as the second poorest country in the hemisphere nationalizes its natural gas reserves, and to help it develop a petrochemical industry.

Chavez and Morales contrasted the agreements with faltering U.S. plans for a "Free Trade Area of the Americas," each charging the United States with trying to impose "imperialist domination" on the region.

"All Venezuela's and Cuba's experience over these years building integration, all the potential of our economies and people are at the Bolivian people's disposal," Chavez said during the signing ceremony.

Morales, who was elected in December, said upon arrival on Friday, "This meeting is a great meeting of three generations, of three revolutions."

Castro came to power in a 1959 communist revolution, and Chavez first won a presidential election in 1998 to lead what he calls a "Bolivarian revolution."

"ALBA has worked very well for both Cuba and Venezuela, and Bolivia's joining can only improve it by adding another dimension," Cuban economist Omar Everleny said.

Latin America Split On Future

Nicaraguan Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega, who held power in the 1980s and is a leading candidate in a presidential election in November, was at the podium for the signing as an observer.

"Until this year, Castro and Chavez seemed doomed to remain a two-man club. The addition of Morales dramatically changes this equation," said Daniel Erikson, Caribbean programs director at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group.

Bolivia's gas deposits expand the economic potential of ALBA, which already includes Venezuela's oil reserves, he said.

Latin America is increasingly divided on how to form an economic bloc that can compete in the global economy.

Nine Latin American countries, including Mexico and Chile, have signed free-trade agreements with Washington. Others, such as all-important Brazil and Argentina, have refused, while also keeping their distance from ALBA.

"It remains to be seen how far this alternative economic model will take hold in the hemisphere. Most countries are not about to adopt restricted, selective policies towards foreign investment or turn towards state direction of the economy," said Phil Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a conservative U.S. think tank.

[Ryan Ruck]

Castro, Chavez, Morales Sign Anti-U.S. Pact

Bolivia's new left-leaning president signed a pact with Cuba and Venezuela on Saturday rejecting U.S.-backed free trade and promising a socialist version of regional commerce and cooperation.

Cuban authorities did not release copies of the so-called Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas signed by Bolivia's Evo Morales, so its contents were unclear.

Local media reported that it had the same language as the declaration signed last year by Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, which contained much leftist rhetoric, and few specifics, but was followed by closer economic ties between the two vehemently anti-U.S. leaders.

The agreement was "a clever mixture of politics and economics, weighted toward the politics," said Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.

Venezuela-Cuba trade is expected to reach more than $3.5 billion this year - about 40 percent higher than in 2005. Among other measures, the deal signed between Chavez and Castro has Venezuela - the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and a major supplier to the United States - selling 90,000 barrels a day of crude to the communist-run island at international market prices, but in exchange for services and agricultural products instead of cash.

Later Saturday, the three presidents signed a second document with more concrete proposals.

Cuba promised to send Bolivia doctors and teachers. Venezuela will send gasoline to the Andean nation and set up a $100 million fund for development programs and a $30 million fund for other social projects.

Cuba and Venezuela also agreed to buy all of Bolivia's soybeans, recently left without a market after Colombia signed a free trade pact with the United States.

Morales, a Bolivian coca farmer who was swept to power on a leftist platform and has long railed against American economic and drug policies, claimed during his campaign to be "the nightmare of the U.S. government." He, like Chavez, has tried to maintain a vibrant private sector while claiming an ever-larger role in managing the economy, and has toned down his rhetoric.

The Cuba-Venezuela deal - known by its Spanish acronym ALBA, also the word for dawn - criticized Washington's efforts to expand its free trade with Latin American countries.