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LATIN AMERICA: Mexico Dusts Off
Leadership Role
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY (IPS) - Below the surface, discussions
about the international aid effort for Haiti hide
undercover jockeying for position between Latin American
countries wishing to consolidate or attain dominance in
the Caribbean region.
Mexico has made a masterly move into the limelight by
organizing the First Mexico-Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
Summit Meeting in the southeastern tourist resort of
Cancún, where aid for Haiti was a major item on the
agenda.
The Mexico-CARICOM Summit was immediately followed by
yet another meeting of heads of state of the Group of
Rio, dubbed the Summit of Unity of Latin America and the
Caribbean, held Monday and Tuesday and attended by 25
national leaders.
They agreed to form a new body from which only Canada
and the United States, of countries within the Americas,
are excluded: the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States, announced Tuesday.
"In Central America and the Caribbean, the countries
that have traditionally wielded influence are Mexico,
Venezuela and Colombia," said Adalberto Santana, a
professor at the state National Autonomous University of
Mexico (UNAM).
"But recently Venezuela's influence has risen, and
Mexico has to all intents and purposes turned its back
on the San José Agreement," he told IPS.
Mexico and Venezuela signed the San José Agreement, an
energy cooperation programme for Central American and
Caribbean countries, in 1980. They agreed to sell
160,000 barrels of oil a day to Barbados, Belize, Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti,
Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Panama.
Under the agreement, payment of 20 percent of the cost
of the oil may be deferred and made available to the
respective governments as a low interest loan for
development projects.
But in 2001, the government of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez instituted a rival mechanism in parallel with the
San José oil facility: the Caracas Energy Agreement,
which paved the way for the 2005 Petrocaribe initiative.
Under the Caracas accord, financing was available for 25
percent of the cost of the oil. There was a one-year
grace period, after which repayment was spread over 15
years at two percent interest. Under the terms of
Petrocaribe, even more generous financing is available
over 25 years at one percent interest, and part of the
cost can be met with other products, such as bananas,
rice and sugar.
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica,
Dominican Republic, Granada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica,
Nicaragua, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and
the Grenadines, Suriname and Venezuela are parties to
the Petrocaribe scheme. Honduras was another, but the
authorities that took power after the June 2009 coup
d'état withdrew from the arrangement.
Aid coalition
"I am calling for a great coalition of the forces that
are giving us aid. Please help more than one million
Haitians who are sleeping on the streets every night,"
said Haitian President René Preval, speaking at the
Mexico-CARICOM Summit.
The Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince
and surrounding areas may have killed up to 300,000
people, Préval told the meeting. The known death toll is
already at least 217,000, but tens of thousands of
victims could still be buried in the rubble, he said.
Mexico was one of the countries that reacted most
promptly to the crisis caused by the earthquake, sending
humanitarian aid and experts in fighting natural
disasters to Haiti.
"What we must do is not rebuild the country, but refound
it, based on greater justice," said the Haitian
president.
In their official declaration on Haiti, the Mexican and
CARICOM heads of state recognised "the urgency of
contributing to international aid efforts for the
reconstruction of Haiti and its long-term development,"
and agreed an immediate cash donation of 25 million
dollars, over and above other short and long-term
support.
In an 18-point summit declaration, the presidents and
prime ministers also addressed the fight against
organised crime, and climate change mitigation.
Conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderón promised
to cooperate with the newly-formed Special Unit for
CARICOM-Haiti Assistance and the Caribbean Disaster
Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), with the aim of
designing a regional strategy to cope with natural
catastrophes.
The Second Mexico-CARICOM Summit meeting is scheduled to
take place in Barbados in 2012. The 15 CARICOM countries
are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,
Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat,
St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the
Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
Looking toward the Caribbean
At this first summit meeting with CARICOM government
leaders, the Calderón administration has made efforts to
widen its sphere of influence, beginning with aid for
Haiti, in a region where its profile has dimmed in the
last decade compared to other countries, like Venezuela.
Historically, Mexico has been closer to Spanish-speaking
countries, such as the Dominican Republic and Cuba, than
to the English- and French-speaking communities.
Therefore the disaster in Haiti has opened a window of
opportunity for the Calderón government to assert a new
leadership role in the Caribbean.
"The Mexican government has woken up and taken a much
more pro-Latin American stance since the earthquake in
Haiti, and it has played a leading role in the relief
work. It has seized on Haiti as a means of filling the
vacuum that has existed since the late 1990s, because it
failed to implement a more active and high-profile
policy," Santana said.
Mexico did not join any of the Latin American blocs
formed in the 1990s. It has not become a full member of
the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), made up of
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela
in the process of acquiring full membership.
Neither has it joined the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Peoples of Our America (ALBA), founded in 2004 as an
initiative of Cuba and Venezuela, and now also
comprising Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Dominica,
Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and St Vincent and the
Grenadines.
In 2009 Venezuela sold the members of Petrocaribe
105,000 barrels of crude oil a day, and financed an
average of 40 percent of the cost of the shipments.
Petrocaribe's terms offer financing for between five to
50 percent of the value of the oil, payable over 17 to
25 years at an interest rate of one percent if the oil
price is above 40 dollars a barrel.
However, Mexico does belong to the Association of
Caribbean States, which has 29 member countries.
At the session with his Caribbean counterparts,
President Calderón gave no specific figures for the
amount of aid he intends to send Haiti. On the other
hand, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is
due to visit Haiti Thursday, and he has already
committed 15 million dollars in aid, as well as offering
to build a hydroelectric power station.
Brazilian officials are in charge of the United Nations
Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).
Repairing the earthquake damage in Haiti will cost about
14 billion dollars, according to the Inter-American
Development Bank.
Support for the reconstruction of the country was in
fact the first issue discussed Monday, at a closed
session of Latin American and Caribbean heads of state
and government, on the first day of the Summit of Unity
in Cancún.
But how the reconstruction effort should be organised
appeared to be a potential source of friction between
leaders at the meeting, as governments of countries like
Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia oppose its management by the
United States, whose troops have been in Haiti since the
earthquake, displacing even MINUSTAH personnel from some
locations. |
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