Under the motto "defend the union, dignity and sovereignty of Our America," the Heads of State and Government of the ALBA member countries met in the Venezuelan capital on March 5, approving a combative declaration of solidarity with the Revolution Bolivarian, subjected to all kinds of threats and accusations infamous in a campaign orchestrated by the extreme right sells country with the support of the external forces of imperialism. Because of their relevance to the entire Latin American and Caribbean region, the following are reproduced verbatim: The Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) met in Caracas, four years after the sowing of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and four months after the departure of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, our founders, whose examples and ideas interpret and summarize the legacy of the liberators.
They educated us in understanding our national struggles and yearnings as interdependent processes and as solidarity contributions to the common dreams of freedom, dignity, justice and peace for the Great Homeland; To put collective interests before the nationals.
The ALBA-TCP, political, economic, and social alliance defends the independence, self-determination and identity of our peoples. We are united by solidarity, complementarity, justice and cooperation, with the historical purpose of joining the capacities and strengths of our countries, in order to achieve integral development and to exist as sovereign nations.
Latin America and the Caribbean is at a crucial stage in its history: popular democratic processes led by governments, political forces and leftist movements face a new onslaught of imperialism, transnational capital and national oligarchies. The decline of imperial hegemonism, the impact of the international systemic crisis and the fall in the prices of our export resources, particularly of hydrocarbons, open new challenges. They are generated by the same forces that created poverty, exclusion and dependence on our nations and imposed invasions and dictatorships to consolidate their power.
In all these years and against our resistance, neoliberalism has not ceased in its effort to extend its financial logic: it is not a theory of development; it is the doctrine of total looting of our peoples. With neoliberalism, the world economy has not grown in real terms, but instability, speculation, foreign debt, unequal exchange, increasingly frequent financial crises, poverty, inequality, unemployment and The gulf between the opulent North and the dispossessed South
His return has revived to the worst conservatism, reactivated fundamentalism, xenophobia, racism and militarism. The policy is funded by foreign companies and governments. Scientific-technological advances have led to a high level of political-communication agreement between imperialists and oligarchs to manipulate the masses and attack our cultures. New faces, instruments and methods confuse voters and disrupt election results.
Right-wing parties use the legislative, judicial, and media powers as platforms for conspiracy, and unscrupulous, break the democratic order they used to enforce, impose adjustment packages with privatizations and mass dismissals, and encourage the articulation of political subversion.
The corruption against which left-wing and progressive organizations and movements of the region fought before coming to power, and against which they have had to fight hard once they have been converted into governments, is manipulated for political purposes, to criminalize and demoralize organizations and Leaders. Some are in it to attack the effectiveness, justice and efficiency of public administrations, limiting the confidence of the citizens in their institutions and their participatory exercise. Others are evaded, immortally hiding their capitals in tax havens.
We must denounce them all and combat them with energy, while increasing efforts to strengthen good management in the administration of public and collective goods. The social control of them must be assumed as a priority in the member countries of ALBA-TCP. This confrontation is essential and should be part of our integrity and ethics, as we work for the prosperity of our countries.
The main attack is against the Bolivarian Revolution. The arbitrary US sanctions against Venezuela, especially against its Executive Vice President Tareck El Aissami, must be annulled. The inexplicable executive order of the President of the United States of America who declares Venezuela an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of that country must be repealed. Venezuela, is the cradle of the freedom of Our America, the promoter of regional integration and the bastion of anti-imperialism. The defense of Venezuela and its revolution is not the exclusive problem of Venezuelans. It is a cause that summons all those who fight for true independence in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Venezuela the battle of Ayacucho of the 21st century is fought today.
The unity and regional integration of Latin America and the Caribbean is an urgent need in this complex environment. ALBA-TCP, along with blocs such as MERCOSUR, UNASUR, CARICOM, and others that regained their leading role in the last decade, should continue to contribute to regional integration.
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is our most precious work. It is the mechanism to forge unity in diversity through political concertation. The Community has had to face the resistance of the defenders of failed Pan-Americanism. We must preserve it.
Our commitment to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace guides our international action. It supports our strict adherence to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law, reaffirms our respect for self-determination, national sovereignty and the sovereign equality of States. Expresses the will to resolve differences in a peaceful way, through dialogue and negotiation; And recognizes the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system.
The small economies of the Caribbean, which suffered genocide against the native population and slavery, and colonial and neo-colonial looting, now face the challenges of climate change, natural disasters and other global crises, making them the most vulnerable. our family. The Caribbean, strongly supported by the generous initiative of Petrocaribe, deserves the greatest solidarity and all our attention.
We emphasize that water and basic sanitation are a human right that can not be in the hands of private individuals and that it is the duty of States to guarantee their supply for the well-being of peoples.
In the face of ALBA-TCP and all genuine integrationist efforts, there is the Organization of American States, in which the concerns of our peoples find no expression, much less support or defense, but hegemonic attempts and projects. The conduct of its Secretary-General is unworthy and has no mandate from Member States.
Our America faces a new agenda of imperial domination, marked by the announcement of a selfish and extreme protectionism that will impact our still dependent economies. The implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is under threat today. Our people, forced to migrate under conditions of life resulting from underdevelopment and an unjust and exclusive international economic order, are persecuted, criminalized, deported and their human rights frequently violated. In the name of security, military and police expenses are increased, people are persecuted for religious or racial reasons, and walls are built, such as the northern border of Mexico, to whose people we express our solidarity.
In ALBA-TCP we express our concern for the treatment of our Latin American and Caribbean brothers who are in the condition of migrants, in this sense we propose to reactivate the Fund for Legal Support and Advice to Migrants within the ALBA Bank.
The governments and peoples of ALBA-TCP see in these phenomena a new opportunity for regrouping, mobilization and struggle. We must support emancipatory actions, clearly and realistically set the horizons, identify the values and principles that unite us and assume an integrationist, solidarity and internationalist program of action that establishes the economic, social and political premises of liberating change.
We need to strengthen organizations and social movements to face our adversaries. We need to better explain to people the high degree of external dependence of our economies and how this compromises independence and national sovereignty. We can and must open more opportunities to trade and intraregional cooperation to ensure economic independence, the guarantee of our political independence.
In that sense, we reaffirm our commitment to deepen an agenda of social, economic and productive work that strengthens the Alliance and provides our people with the right conditions for their integral and complementary development.
They support and support the Convocation of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the "World Conference of the Peoples for a World without Walls towards universal citizenship", to be held on June 20 and 21, 2017 in the city of Cochabamba - Tiquipaya of that country .
We salute the designation of comrade David Choquehuanca, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, as the new Executive Secretary of ALBA-TCP and wish him success in his duties.
We are responsible not only to build awareness of the need for change, but to persuade and demonstrate the certainty of its possibility.
Let us integrate and unite ourselves. This is the victory.
Caracas, March 5, 2017