HAVANA, Cuba , April 16 (acn) Cuban President Raul Castro today underscored the Unique Regional Compensation System known by its acronyms SUCRE , as he addressed heads of state and government at the Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), held in Venezuela. The work undertaken by the ALBA plus Ecuador since November 2008 to set up the SUCRE is particularly significant, said the Cuban President, who described the initiative as a key factor to boost trade in the context of the regional integration mechanism, according to PL news agency.
The advances made in that first step are aimed at setting up a common monetary unit, said Raul Castro and ratified Cuba ’s vocation of solidarity towards Latin America and the Caribbean.
The regional integration initiative, ALBA, has instruments to face today’s world crisis, but he went on to warn that nobody would escape the crisis; however this group made up of six full member nations and another three with observer status has the tools to partially counter the effects of the crisis.
The crisis poses huge challenges of incalculable and unforeseeable dimensions, “so we have no other choice than to unite in order to face it,” he stressed as he warned that the economic and social crisis already has a global character, which is not only limited to the financial sector. It constitutes a world scourge with deep structural roots that include the collapse of the stock market and production, he said.
Such a situation leads to the freezing of growth and to economic recession along with the shrinking of world trade and the increase of unemployment and poverty, said the Cuban head of state. He added that the situation also affects thousands of millions of people in South countries, who are the ones who, as usual, will suffer the most from the consequences stemming from the irresponsible practice of deregulation and financial speculation and the imposition of neo-liberalism.
Raul Castro accused the United States for making deliberate use of the privileges offered by the current international economic order, which allows that country to print money without any backing, along with warmongering and unsustainable consumerism.
In fact, the crisis is the foreseeable result of the capitalist system of production and distribution, and the neo-liberal policies worsened its scope, said Raul. He warned that, in the search for solutions, those responsible end up with increased power and wealth, while the exploited and the poorest assume the bulk of the cost.
The answer can not negotiated on the back of the United Nations by the leaders of the most powerful countries, or by means of administrative measures because their nature is structural and increasingly affect the economy of the globalized and inter-dependent planet, he pointed out.
Neither can the solution be the strengthening of financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, whose disastrous policies contributed decisively to the genesis and development of the crisis. The solution given by the G-20 does not solve inequality or injustice, Raul stressed. It is the same rhetoric of North countries, of not implementing protectionist measures and handing out assistance that does not alter underdevelopment.
Raul Castro recalled that after a G-20 meeting, held six months ago in Washington, the World Bank had counted 73 protectionist actions implemented by members of the group, without any increase in official assistance for development.
The ALBA countries, said Raul, have the privilege of sharing a project based on integrated principles on the basis of equality and whose nature denies all the kinds of practice that generated the current crisis.
He explained that the ALBA nations do not have the capacity to structurally change the world economic order, but they can set up a new basis and build their own economic relations. “Our most important programs are not linked to financial speculation and uncontrolled market fluctuation,” he said.
PL news reports that participating in the Summit are Bolivia ’s Evo Morales, Honduras´ Manuel Zelaya, Nicaragua ’s Daniel Ortega, Venezuela ’s Hugo Chavez and Dominica ’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.
Paraguay´s President Fernando Lugo, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves and Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconi, representing Rafael Correa, are attending as guests. Also present are the president of the UN General Assembly Miguel D´Escoto and the president of the ALBA Bank Bernardo Alvarez.
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