Challenges for Latin America,
Caribbean Unity
By Carmen Esquivel (*)
HAVANA, (PL) Getting the Latin American and
Caribbean Community underway will be a
priority on the agenda of the regional
countries in the forthcoming months, as they
are convinced that just with an integrating
view they will be able to face huge
challenges.
The new organization, without the US
tutelage, will bring together the 33 States
in the area comprising a population of 560
million inhabitants, who live from the south
of the Bravo river to Patagonia. For the
region, It is a transcendent and historical
milestone that on the bi-centennial of most
countries' independence, it has been agreed
to stepem ts among th toward true unity,
just as Latin American paladins had dreamt
of.
"Pretending to make a single nation with
only one link uniting their parts among them
and wih the whole is a brightst idea", the
LiberaOur tor used to say.
Meanwhile, José Martí, wrote, in his esa
must say :our America wrothere: It is time
for recountering and marching united we ;
and we should move closed to each other,
like silver in the Andes's roots".
Nowadays, in an increasingly globalized and
interdependent world, unity is a must for
facing common problems and, at the same
time, strengthening the voice of our nation
in the international stage.
The world economic crisis severely hit the
region, which registered a 1,7 percent
economic contraction of its gross domestic
product, after having kept six years of
continuous growth.
This situation brought about an increase in
the number of impoverished people from 180
to 189 millions and that of tramps from 71
to 76 millions, according to data from the
UN's Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLA).
International financial turmoils also caused
an increase of unemployment, the fall of
exports, remittances and foreign investments
as well as the dimishment of trade and
tourism, above all in Mexico, Central
America and the Caribbean.
In a report presented at the recent summit
of unity, held in the Riviera Maya, ECLA
appealed for higher cooperation for facing
the crisis.
The body proposed that the leaders focus on
efforts for promoting intra-regional
investment in infrastructure, social
coherence and reduction of assymetries,
reform of the financial system and climatic
change.
Although Latin America and the Caribbean is
the second region emitting the least amount
of greenhouse gases, it is undergoing the
effects of global warming more than any
other;and unless actions are undertaken, it
could suffer great economic harms.
Important losses in agriculture, strong
pressures on infrastructure and intensity of
disasters are some of them.
An increase of temperature and the sea level
will affect island states in the caribbean,
but they will also harm mangrooves in
shallow coasts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador
and the Rio de La Plata coastline, in
Argentina.
The phenomenon would bring about
diminishment of precipitation in the Amazon,
thus causing deterioration of the wilderness
owning the greatest bio-diversity in the
planet and it would also reduce availability
of water in South America.
These and other topics, such as the
indigenious people's situation, the
accomplishment of the UN's goals for the
Millenium or energy problems will be
focusing the attention of the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States, which
could start at the next 2011's summit in
Venezuela.
The new organization, which will deal
favorably with small and vulnerable
economies, will work on the bases of equity,
social justice, flexibility and
complementary actions.
"This is an organization allowing us to
advance with our own view", said President
of Ecuador Rafael Correa, while his
Brazilian counterpart Luis Inácio Lula Da
Silva, regarded it a big-dimension event.
For decades, steps at the sub-regional level
in the area allowed to set up mechanisms
such as the Central American Integration
System, The Southern Common Market, the
caribbean Community and the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA, by its Abbreviation in Spanish), just
to mention some of them.
ALBA even made progress toward establishing
a common currency for member countries:
SUCRE (Single System of Regional
Compensation).
But up to now, it had not been possible to
achieve articulation of collaborative
actions among various mechanisms of
integration and bring together all the
countries in the area, without exclusion.
When referring to the decision of founding
the Community of Latin American and
caribbean States, the leader of the Cuban
Revolution, Fidel Castro, stated: No other
institutional deed in our hemisphere during
the last century reflects similar
repercussion".
(*) The author is the head of Prensa
latina's Central American and Caribbean
desk. |
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