South American summit dreams of uniting continent’s governments, people
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 7, 2006
South American summit dreams of uniting continent’s governments, people
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia
Hopes for a continentwide trading community and a celebration of the region’s populist movements will highlight a two-day summit of South American leaders hosted by Bolivian President Evo Morales in this warm valley city.
Following a string of victories for Latin America’s emerging left, the Community of South American Nations, or CSN, summit begins Friday and will serve as a coming out party for Ecuadorean President-elect Rafael Correa, the newest face on the political block.
Correa will be joined by fellow election winners Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, both populists fresh off landslide wins. The left-leaning Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will also attend.
Though elected earlier this year on a center-left platform, Peru’s Alan Garcia will likely find himself alone on the opposite end of the political spectrum after verbally sparring with Chavez. Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe, a conservative president with strong ties to the United States, was expected to stay home to address an unraveling peace deal with right-wing paramilitary groups.
Center-left Argentine President Nestor Kirchner will also miss the event, but has not given a reason.
Outside the fancy hotel ballrooms, Morales has also convened a "complementary" summit of social movements from across the continent, hoping to grant the assembled Indian groups, trade unions, landless peasants, and local coca farmers a greater voice in South America’s future.
"We will hold meetings among both heads of state and leaders of social movements to create a cornerstone of the South American community," Morales said at a Thursday news conference. "Only together with the social movements can we guarantee a true South American community - not only among it states, but among its people as well."
Created in 2004 in the wake of the failed U.S.-backed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the summit aims to promote the continent’s own independent approach to trade and international relations.
It seeks to weave closer economic ties between member nations currently split between the Mercosur and Community of Andean Nations trade pacts, with the eventual goal of a continentwide community similar to the European Union.
Trade across the Atlantic will likely come up during the weekend’s talks. Mercosur, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Uruguay, have already entered into negotiations with the European Union. The Andean group - Peru Bolivian, Ecuador, Colombia _are set to begin talks with the EU early next year.
The leaders may also discuss creating a new form of development financing alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, whose loans over the years have saddled much of the continent with unpayable debts.
Analysts say the weekend’s conversations will focus on fostering greater economic unity and sovereignty for South America - and as such will be closely watched by Washington and Brussels.
"The big fear is that Latin American countries in general will start playing by their own rules," said Joe Zacune, of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group who traveled to Cochabamba to monitor trade issues at the summit.
Energy also looks to be a prominent theme for the weekend. Chavez will likely try to sell his doubting neighbors on an ambitious plan to build a natural gas pipeline the length of the continent. Morales, meanwhile, hopes to use Bolivia’s central location to position his country as the natural hub of South America’s gas market.
The Cochabamba summit will be the first diplomatic contact between Peru and Venezuela since the two countries withdrew their ambassadors in April. Garcia won Peru’s presidential election this year in part by demonizing his leftist opponent as Chavez’s pawn, and the two leaders have traded insults.
In hosting the summit, Morales seeks a brief respite from tumultuous couple of weeks in his own country, where hundreds are on hunger strike to protest the president’s control of an assembly called to rewrite Bolivia’s constitution.
Morales has asked conservative opposition groups to hold off their protests during the conference.
The alternative summit was in full swing a day before the presidents were to arrive.
Associated Press Writer Bill Cormier contributed to this report.
