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Chavez began in 1999 by drafting a new constitution that was put to a nationwide referendum and overwhelmingly approved by the Venezuelan people. It established the principle of participatory democracy for all Venezuelans, mandated quality health care and education, housing, an improved social security pension system for seniors, free speech, rights for indigenous people and banned discrimination. Chavez is revered by the great majority of his people because of all he's done for them since taking office in 1999. He currently enjoys an approval rating of over 80% and likely will have no trouble remaining President when he runs again for reelection in December unless an attempt is made to remove him from office forcibly before then that succeeds. Chavez is well aware of the threat against him and is doing all he can to prevent it.ALBA - The Bolivarian Alternative to the Fourth WTO Ministerial Doha Round
Hugo Chavez is pursuing his progressive agenda abroad as well as at home. Key to it is his alternative to the US dominated WTO neoliberal type trade agreements that are called "free" but aren't "fair." The ones now in force under mandated WTO trade rules along with IMF and World Bank imposed structural adjustments and privatizations of state industries have caused growing poverty and human misery throughout the developing world. The harmful one-way trade rules are in place for agriculture, services under GATS, intellectual property under TRIPS, and the mostly unpassed corporate wish list from hell covered under MAI that would establish a single global economy run by these corporate giants. Led by the US and its giant transnational companies, the goal of these agreements is to establish a supranational "economic constitution" based on WTO mandated rules of global trade that would override the sovereignty of member states - in other words, to establish a global constitution with a binding set of trade rules favoring rich countries and giant corporations allowing them the right to dominate world markets and exploit developing nations and ordinary people everywhere for their benefit.
Chavez hopes ALBA will unite participating nations in solidarity to benefit the people in them by providing essential goods and services, achieve real economic growth at the grassroots and improve the lives of ordinary people by reducing and one day eliminating poverty. A key feature of the plan is the exchange of goods and services outside the usual international banking and corporate trading system. For example, Venezuela has exchanged Venezuelan oil and building materials with Cuba paid for in kind by Cuba, in turn, sending 20,000 doctors to work in medical clinics and hospitals in the barrios plus staffing literacy programs to teach Venezuelans to read and write.
Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba have also agreed on an ALBA and People's Trade Agreement that will operate on the same basis. The agreements contain many articles and provisions of complementarity and mutually beneficial exchanges that will benefit all three countries and their people and also work with other Latin American countries to help them eradicate illiteracy using the methods that have virtually eliminated it in Venezuela and Cuba. Compare what's been accomplished in those two countries with limited resources to the US where the Department of Education in the richest country in the world estimates over 20% of the population to be functionally illiterate. That startling and shameful fact is but one of many noteworthy testimonies to the failure of the so-called neoliberal "free market" race to the bottom model the US wants to export to all other nations and do it by force if necessary.
The Mercosur Alternative
Mercosur, or the Southern Common Market, is a much less impressive and radical alternative to the WTO model than is ALBA. It's a customs union comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and most recently in July, 2006 Venezuela as a formal member. It was founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asuncion and amended by the Treaty of Ouro Preto in 1994. Mercosur was formed to promote free trade in goods and services among its member Latin American states that also include Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as associate members as well as Mexico in temporary observer status prior to becoming an associate member.
As a functioning trade body, Mercosur is far different than ALBA. It was never meant to be an alternative to the dominant WTO model but rather to be complimentary to it. It was formed by and represents the ruling class of its Latin American member states that have long been dominated by the Global North. They believed by unifying into a regional trade block, they would have more negotiating clout in combination than each one could have acting separately. Despite the standoff at Cancun in 2003 and the just failed Doha round in Geneva, its results have been mixed at best in its dealings with the US primarily. Even as a more powerful regional trading block, these nations haven't been able to get the US to soften its negotiating position in trade talks and thus be willing to offer fairer terms, especially on products most important to each Latin country.
The failed Doha round especially proved that, but it also proved that when developing nations stand firm together, they can hold their own, bring talks with the US to a standstill, and prove they mean business and no longer are willing to cut one-way deals hurting themselves. So maybe after three years of failing to get its way in spite of all the pressure the US can bring to bear, Washington may finally be getting the message. But with the hardline Bush administration still in charge moving ahead boldly with bilateral deals, that possibility may only be wishful thinking.
Enter Venezuela into Mercosur
On July 21, Venezuela formally became the fifth member of Mercosur making this body the world's third largest economic bloc and adding to the strength of Latin American unity that may better enable it to hold its own in future trade negotiations with the US and other dominant Global North nations. Hugo Chavez joined this alternative trade bloc just months after withdrawing from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) pact in April, 2006 in response to CAN members Colombia and Peru signing Free Trade Agreements with the US. The benefits of Venezuela's addition are significant, and Hugo Chavez signaled it by saying: "We are entering a new stage of Mercosur." He went on to add: "Latin America has all it needs to become a great world power (he didn't mean a military one). Let's not put any limits on our dreams. Let's make them reality." Chavez's words were backed up by Brazil's President Lula da Silva when he added "no one is talking anymore (about the US-backed) FTAA." And Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner added emphasis with his comment that "Democracy, human rights, liberty and the fight against poverty (are the basis for) a new world order." In his comments, Hugo Chavez was expressing his hope that with the addition of his country and likely other nations to follow, Mercosur would take more steps to "prioritize social concerns" and begin a process of no longer being beholden solely to "the old elitist corporate models" that put profits ahead of people needs. Hopefully, to some degree at least, Lula and Kirchner were expressing the same sentiment. So far though in their own style of governance, these two leaders differ markedly from Hugo Chavez and mostly follow the neoliberal "free market" rules prescribed by the US that the corporate giants benefit from.
But those leaders as well as those from Uruguay and Paraguay got a hint of what their people want at the summit when social activists representing the interest of labor, the environment, women's issues, human rights, and campesinos marched on the streets in solidarity with demonstrators of left-wing parties to present their progressive alternative proposals for regional integration to the Mercosur leaders. The street event marked the close of the summit at which the Peoples' Summit for Sovereignty and Integration ran for the first time parallel to a Mercosur summit meeting. The Peoples' agenda addressed issues that included anti-poverty measures, indigenous peoples' rights and demands, the protection of natural resources, investment in education, trade liberalization and matters of concern to women.
Participating organizations prepared a final document that proclaimed "South America is entering a new era," and they intend to create and fight for an alternative plan to the failed neoliberal so-called "free market" ones they reject. They made their goals clear stating: "No to free trade agreements and yes to peoples' integration. No to foreign debt and to meddling by the international financial institutions. Yes to economic independence. No to militarization, yes to self-determination. No to hunger and poverty, yes to better distribution of wealth."
Those attending also rejected a US Senate initiative to create a counter-terrorism organization in the tri-border area connecting Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, demanded Latin American UN MINUSTAH "blue helmet" so-called "peacekeepers" (that, in fact, serve as thuggish enforcers) be withdrawn from Haiti, and protested against the illegal US war against Iraq and the joint US-Israeli equally illegal ones against Lebanon and Palestine. This is likely to be a taste of further protest activism to come with various NGO groups representing ordinary people demanding their political leaders address the vital issues of greatest concern to them. With Hugo Chavez as a formal Mercosur member and already governing that way in Venezuela, these groups have an important regional leader as an ally who'll back and help them by addressing their needs and advocating Mercosur nations adopt them.
Chavez and Mercosur have already had one notable achievement last November when Venezuela successfully led the opposition that thwarted the US's attempt to conclude its Free Trade of the Americas agreement (FTAA) with South American countries. It's very likely FTAA is now dead, and the US may only attempt to resurrect it in bilateral form to get the best deals it can, even ones less acceptable to its giant corporations that would rather have all they get bilaterally than nothing at all resulting from the demise of FTAA.
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