United, we will be in a better
condition to confront the crisis

Speech by General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz, president of the Councils of State and Ministers at the opening of the ALBA Summit

Dear heads of state and government;
Dear delegates and invited guests;

IN giving you the most cordial welcome on behalf of the Cuban government and people, I transmit to you greetings from the leader of the Cuban Revolution, compañero Fidel Castro Ruz, who is closely following our meeting.

In the first place, I will take advantage of the occasion to express on behalf of everyone present the delight that we felt at the overwhelming victory of the Bolivian people last Sunday with their reelection, by an ample majority, of compañero Evo Morales Ayma for a new mandate as president.

Lamentably, we do not have with us the physical presence of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. The people of that Latin American nation have been deprived of their constitutional rights and, with the support of the U.S. government, have had imposed on them a usurping coup government, which an electoral farce tried to make legitimate. 

History will record with due recognition the attitude assumed by the member countries of the ALBA-TCP and by the majority of Latin American and Caribbean governments in their unequivocal condemnation of the military coup in Honduras. The record will also reveal the attitude of those who, bowing down to imperialism, ended up accepting the coup maneuver.

We send our warmest greeting to the Honduran people via Patricia Rodas, their legitimate representative as secretary of state, and present here.

Dear colleagues:
This 8th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, which we are officially opening today, begins its sessions coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the first visit to Cuba of the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and the 5th anniversary of the Venezuela-Cuba Joint Declaration, signed in 2004 by Presidents Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, which marked the official birth of the ALBA, known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.

There have been five years of intensive work, of common searching, in which we have achieved encouraging results in the social order, which we can still surpass, and which it is just to mention and celebrate at this particular moment.

The tremendous significance represented by the declaration of a territory free of illiteracy in three ALBA member countries: Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, is one step in the ongoing battle to eradicate that social disaster in all the member countries of this new kind of integration mechanism.

Operation Miracle has improved or restored the sight of more than one million patients within the ALBA. At the same time, more than 2,000 doctors from our countries have graduated from the Latin America School of Medicine and 6, 653 young people are currently studying under the new Medical Training Program, with concepts of integrality, internationalism and humanism.

Currently underway in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia is a genetic, psycho-social study for people with disabilities, a project of exceptional human value that pursues direct attention, the search for solutions and the social integration of the afore-mentioned persons.

The last summit in Cochabamba saw the signing of the Single Regional Payment Compensation System (SUCRE) Agreement, a financial mechanism that, from 2010, will begin to operate to promote trade via payment compensations without having to use the dollar, via an accounting unit called the SUCRE. A prior step was the constitution in June 2007 of the Bank of ALBA, with the objective of financing programs and projects of economic and social development. Various grannacional (grand-national) enterprises are today a reality, and others are in the starting-up process, to the benefit of our peoples.

The agenda that we have proposed gives us the possibility of deliberating – beyond the successes and results of ALBA during these last five years – ways of making more profound the development, improvement and impact of our alliance.

We are obliged to propose for ourselves daring goals and objectives, based on a realistic comprehension of the circumstances, obstacles and dangers posed by the current international conjunction and which demand our priority attention.

The current economic crisis, which began in the United States and was originated by the profound contradictions of the capitalist system, is continuing to have a forceful impact on the real economy, society and world environment. More than a few experts have proclaimed with unjustified optimism an imminent end of the recession.

However, the only certainty is that the destructive effects of the crisis will be around for a long time. The most recent estimates note than the number of unemployed people throughout the world would increase by 50 million this year, while those living in extreme poverty could approach the alarming figure of 300 million.

United we will be in a better condition to confront the crisis, by taking advantage of the potential that the ALBA countries’ market offers us and by efficiently utilizing the complementary aspects of our economies to access third markets.

The times in which we live reflect that the confrontation between two historic forces is becoming more acute in Latin America and the Caribbean. On the one side, a dependent, elitist and exploitative political and economic model inherited from colonialism and subordinated to the interests of the empire. On the opposing side, the advance of revolutionary and progressive political forces, which represent the traditionally dispossessed classes and those to have suffered discrimination; committed to social justice, to the genuine independence of the peoples of the region, and to the aspiration of a just distribution of the immense riches of the continent.

In essence, it is about the historical fight to make concrete the realization of the Bolivarian and Martí vision of Our America.

The establishment of military bases in the region is an expression of the hegemonic offensive that the U.S. government is deploying and constitutes an act of aggression against all of Latin America and the Caribbean. There is an evident intention to make concrete its political-military doctrine of occupying and dominating at any price the territory that it has always considered its "natural backyard."

The reactivation of the 4th Fleet, with announced operative-strategic maneuver capacities even within the interior waters of the countries of the region, demonstrates that there will be no limits in order to achieve its plans, apart from the imposition of the resistance that we are capable of offering.

The ALBA-TCP cannot ignore that reality. In the sessions awaiting us we shall exchange our views on these and other issues, such as control of the mass media.

We also have on our agenda an analysis of the failure of the negotiations that should have concluded in Copenhagen within a few days with concrete, real and verifiable commitments to confront the effects of climate change.

It is already known that there will be no such agreement and it is merely about awaiting a political statement. We in the ALBA-TCP countries have to defend a strong position on this issue, decisive for the future of the human species.

We have the conviction that the ideas and cooperation of all of you in this 8th Summit will constitute a significant contribution to the strengthening of our Alliance.

Thank you very much.