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New page in the evolution
of
the continent
Nidia Diaz
WHEN
the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz
and Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the central driving
force of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela,
signed the constitution of what was then called the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) on
December 14, 2004 in Havana, it is possible that not
everyone realized the profound historical and real
significance of the step being taken at that time,
when a new page in the future of Latin America and
the Caribbean was being opened.
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Raúl and Chávez during last
April’s extraordinary summit. Also in the
photo, vice president of the Council of
Ministers of Cuba, Ricardo Cabrisas, and
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro. |
Effectively, the coincidence of principles between
the processes of economic, social and political
transformation that began in Cuba in 1959 and in
Venezuela at the end of the 90s, both directed
toward socialism, genuine national sovereignty and
full development to the benefit of the majorities,
facilitated and propitiated the swift rapprochement
of the two revolutionary governments and would
constitute a solid base for joint undertakings.
The
ALBA was born - to the displeasure and despair of
U.S. imperialism and the oligarchies associated with
and dependent on it - with intelligence and daring
uniting the potentiality and possibilities of Cuba
and Venezuela, mutually complementing and benefiting
each other on a basis of respect and solidarity,
which would later extend to other countries. These,
animated by those same proposals and objectives,
have joined ALBA over the last five years.
The
history of this continent will have to be written
with a pre- and post-ALBA; its creation, gradual
institutionalization, the expansion of its members
and multifaceted development have already laid down
indelible moments forming a higher link in the long
struggle of Latin America and the Caribbean toward
the culmination of the ideals of Simón Bolívar and
the second independence of America, as advocated by
José Martí, Cuba's national hero.
It
is that any analysis in this context has to be
rooted in our own history and the links forged over
centuries among the Latin American and Caribbean
peoples, which grant our region an impelling
vocation for integration and a spiritual and
historical heritage of riches little known in the
world.
To
paraphrase that well-known phrase of Marx and Engels,
we could say that "a phantom is sweeping America… it
is the phantom of the ALBA." However, more than a
phantasmagoric vision, it is a concrete reality that
is advancing, developing and extending in multiple
forms, filling imperialism and the oligarchies with
terror, with the result that they are constantly
promoting conspiracies and aggressions of every kind
against the ALBA project and its members.
The
military-oligarchical coup d'état against José
Manuel Zelaya, the constitutional president of
Honduras, whose government has incorporated that
South American country into ALBA, is the clearest
evidence of the above affirmation. A similar
objective is being pursued by the militarization of
Colombia on the part of the United States and the
installation of its seven military bases on
Colombian territory, with others in Panama. The
empire and its associates are taking up positions in
an overt maneuver aimed at liquidating or reducing
to a minimum possibilities of integration and the
influence of ALBA, as well as cutting back the
numbers of nations that have joined, to which end
they are ready to use any means, including the
resurrection of fascism or external aggression.
They
know that ALBA is far more than a simple integration
mechanism or one of fair and equitable trade. That
was clearly noted by Hugo Chávez on receiving the
UNESCO José Martí International Prize on February 3,
2006, standing beside Fidel in the Plaza de la
Revolución in Havana, when he stated that socialist
ideas are those that can unite "our little human
gender" (in Bolívar's words), and which is the same
as Our America, as Martí subsequently named it.
The
ALBA represents something that has never been
achieved to date: the articulation of the Latin
American and Caribbean intellectual tradition with
the ideas of socialism; beginning with the concrete
development of our societies and that intellectual
tradition to creatively find the most appropriate
forms and ways to open the way to ancestral
aspirations of our peoples, thus making them a
definitive reality.
Scholars of that tradition have noted that Our
America assumed the ideas of the Enlightenment as
embodied in the French Revolution, re-elaborating
them in function of the genuine needs of our
peoples, as was subsequently the case with
liberalism, which radically differed from that of
Europe in these lands. In the 20th century, the
Latin American socialist tradition likewise has
distinguishing features, as apparent in the ideas of
Julio Antonio Mella, José Carlos Mariátegui and
Ernesto Che Guevara.
The
ALBA is rooted in that long history of political and
social emancipation struggles which were, at one and
the same time, the forging and the result of
revolutionary ideas anchored from the Río Grande to
Patagonia, nourished by the finest and most advanced
of universal philosophy.
The
pro-liberation actions of Bolívar and the thinking
of Martí, together with all the great national
heroes and thinkers of America form the powerful
cultural sustenance of what Chávez described as "the
Martí Alternative for the Americas," which he
likewise called "the soul of ALBA." In the terrain
of ideas that cultural sustenance's contribution to
the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean
is indispensable; hence the importance of the ALBA
cultural projects. The fundamentals of that "soul of
ALBA," which can stand up to the challenges of
humanity as a whole, is to be found in
investigations, studies and programs promoting the
culture of Bolívar and Martí and that of other great
national heroes and thinkers.
The
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) is an unprecedented integral and
integrationalist experience, which is blossoming in
the very backyard of hegemonic U.S. domination and
in the midst of a world shaken by wars of
aggression, a profound global economic crisis and
other diverse crises, and the redoubled attempts of
the empire to recover lost terrain in collusion with
its oligarchical partners, not only in our region
but in the rest of the world.
In
such an environment, in the brief space of five
years ALBA has already exhibited economic and social
achievements and is irrefutably demonstrating the
most complete unity in terms of political and
cooperative positions related to dignity,
independence and the right of every country to
freely construct its future in line with the will of
the people. Within ALBA what appeared to be
impossible in a world characterized by exclusion has
been achieved: unity within
diversity.
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