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.
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