The Declaration of Cumaná
April 23rd 2009, by ALBA Member Countries

ALBA
Cumaná, Venezuela

We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras,
Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft
Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and
unacceptable for the following reasons:

- The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis,
even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity
in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to
the welfare of our peoples.

- The Declaration unfairly excludes Cuba, without mentioning the consensus
in the region condemning the blockade and isolation to which the people and
the government of Cuba have incessantly been exposed in a criminal manner.

For this reason, we, the member countries of ALBA believe that there is no
consensus for the adoption of this draft declaration because of the reasons
above stated, and accordingly, we propose to hold a thorough debate on the
following topics:

1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are
experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural
nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer
money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong.
The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the
real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world,
this is not a “system regulation failure”�, but a integrating part of the
capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to
obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has
generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50
million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.

2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the
necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market
and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able
to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are
going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.

3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the
energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to
end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop
and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:

- solidarity and complementarity, not competition;
- a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human
resources;
- a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition
of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries;
- a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies
and wars;
- in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies
and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.

4. As a concrete expression of the new reality of the continent, we,
Caribbean and Latin American countries, have commenced to build our own
institutionalization, an institutionalization that is based on a common
history dating back to our independence revolution and constitutes a
concrete tool for deepening the social, economic and cultural transformation
processes that will consolidate our full sovereignty. ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe
or UNASUR, mentioning merely the most recently created, are solidarity-based
mechanisms of unity created in the midst of such transformations with the
obvious intention of boosting the efforts of our peoples to attain their own
freedom. To face the serious effects of the global economic crisis, we, the
ALBA-TCP countries, have adopted innovative and transforming measures that
seek real alternatives to the inadequate international economic order, not
to boost their failed institutions. Thus, we have implemented a Regional
Clearance Unitary System, the SUCRE, which includes a Common Unit of
Account, a Clearance Chamber and a Single Reserve System. Similarly, we have
encouraged the constitution of grand-national companies to satisfy the
essential needs of our peoples and establish fair and complementary trade
mechanisms that leave behind the absurd logic of unbridled competition.

5. We question the G20 for having tripled the resources of the International
Monetary Fund when the real need is to establish a new world economic order
that includes the full transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the
WTO, entities that have contributed to this global economic crisis with
their neoliberal policies.

6. The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new
international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of
the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the
International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the
creation of a new international economic order.

7. As for climate change, developed countries are in an environmental debt
to the world because they are responsible for 70% of historical carbon
emissions into the atmosphere since 1750. Developed countries should pay off
their debt to humankind and the planet; they should provide significant
resources to a fund so that developing countries can embark upon a growth
model which does not repeat the serious impacts of the capitalist
industrialization.

8. Solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises should be
comprehensive and interdependent. We cannot solve a problem by creating new
ones in fundamental areas for life. For instance, the widespread use of
agricultural fuels has an adverse effect on food prices and the use of
essential resources, such as water, land and forests.

9. We condemn the discrimination against migrants in any of its forms.
Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we request the United
States government an urgent reform of its migration policies in order to
stop deportations and massive raids and allow for reunion of families. We
further demand the removal of the wall that separates and divides us,
instead of uniting us. In this regard, we petition for the abrogation of the
Law of Cuban Adjustment and removal of the discriminatory, selective Dry
Feet, Wet Feet policy that has claimed human losses. Bankers who stole the
money and resources from our countries are the true responsible, not migrant
workers. Human rights should come first, particularly human rights of the
underprivileged, downtrodden sectors in our society, that is, migrants
without identity papers. Free movement of people and human rights for
everybody, regardless of their migration status, are a must for integration.
Brain drain is a way of plundering skilled human resources exercised by rich
countries.

10. Basic education, health, water, energy and telecommunications services
should be declared human rights and cannot be subject to private deal or
marketed by the World Trade Organization. These services are and should be
essentially public utilities of universal access.

11. We wish a world where all, big and small, countries have the same rights
and where there is no empire. We advocate non-intervention. There is the
need to strengthen, as the only legitimate means for discussion and
assessment of bilateral and multilateral agendas in the hemisphere, the
foundations for mutual respect between states and governments, based on the
principle of non-interference of a state in the internal affairs of another
state, and inviolability of sovereignty and self-determination of the
peoples. We request the new Government of the United States, the arrival of
which has given rise to some expectations in the hemisphere and the world,
to finish the longstanding and dire tradition of interventionism and
aggression that has characterized the actions of the US governments
throughout history, and particularly intensified during the Administration
of President George W. Bush. By the same token, we request the new
Government of the United States to abandon interventionist practices, such
as cover-up operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at disturbing
states and governments, and funding of destabilizing groups. Building on a
world where varied economic, political, social and cultural approaches are
acknowledged and respected is of the essence.

12. With regard to the US blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of the
latter from the Summit of the Americas, we, the member states of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, reassert the
Declaration adopted by all Latin American and Caribbean countries last
December 16, 2008, on the need to end the economic, trade and financial
blockade imposed by the Government of the United States of America on Cuba,
including the implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. The
declaration sets forth in its fundamental paragraphs the following:

“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly
on the need to finish the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by
the United States on Cuba, and the statements on such blockade, which have
been approved in numerous international meetings.

“WE AFFIRM that the application of unilateral, coercive measures affecting
the wellbeing of peoples and hindering integration processes is unacceptable
when defending free exchange and the transparent practice of international
trade.

“WE STRONGLY REPEL the enforcement of laws and measures contrary to
International Law, such as the Helms-Burton Act, and we urge the Government
of the United States of America to finish such enforcement.

“WE REQUEST the Government of the United States of America to comply with
the provisions set forth in 17 successive resolutions approved by the United
Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, trade and financial
blockade on Cuba.”�

Additionally, we consider that the attempts at imposing the isolation of
Cuba have failed, as nowadays Cuba forms an integral part of the Latin
American and Caribbean region; it is a member of the Rio Group and other
hemispheric organizations and mechanisms, which develops a policy of
cooperation, in solidarity with the countries in the hemisphere; which
promotes full integration of Latin American and Caribbean peoples.
Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to justify its exclusion from the
mechanism of the Summit of the Americas.

13. Developed countries have spent at least USD 8 billion to rescue a
collapsing financial structure. They are the same that fail to allocate the
small sums of money to attain the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of the GDP for
the Official Development Assistance. Never before the hypocrisy of the
wording of rich countries had been so apparent. Cooperation should be
established without conditions and fit in the agendas of recipient countries
by making arrangements easier; providing access to the resources, and
prioritizing social inclusion issues.

14. The legitimate struggle against drug trafficking and organized crime,
and any other form of the so-called “new threats”� must not be used as an
excuse to undertake actions of interference and intervention against our
countries.

15. We are firmly convinced that the change, where everybody repose hope,
can come only from organization, mobilization and unity of our peoples.

As the Liberator wisely said:

Unity of our peoples is not a mere illusion of men, but an inexorable decree
of destiny. – Simón Bolí­var