People's trade deal signed
WORKERS, JUNE 2006 ISSUE
Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba signed a People's Trade Agreement in Havana on 29 April. This followed Bolivia's formal accession to ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative Trade Area (alternative to the US sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas). The agreement covers cooperation and trade in a number of areas and recognises Bolivia's need for economic support due, in part, to the effects of US free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia that have taken markets away from Bolivia. The agreement is based on the principles of mutual cooperation and solidarity rather than free markets.
Cuba and Venezuela will guarantee 10,000 free scholarships to Bolivian students and provide state-of-the-art health care, education, and eradication of illiteracy in indigenous languages as well as Spanish, road-building resources, hydrocarbon technology, energy-saving advice, technology in the mining and energy sectors and resources for infrastructure and social programmes. They will also import Bolivian goods. In addition they will assist landlocked Bolivia to build a genuinely national airline.
Bolivia will export to Cuba and Venezuela mining, agricultural livestock and industrial products, contribute to energy security, contribute its expertise in the study of native peoples, cooperate in the study and recovery of ancestral knowledge in the field of natural medicines and provide its research on natural resources and genetic agricultural and livestock patterns. The agreement ends with a joint commitment to Latin American unity and integration, international cooperation and peace. What? No free movement of labour and capital? No having to join NATO? No destruction of one another's industry? No laws imposed on one another?
• At an EU/Latin American summit on Friday 12 May, heads of EU member countries like Austria and Britain berated both Bolivia and Venezuela for attacking free market economics. The Austrian Chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, said there was only one real choice of economic policy and that the "reality is ... open market societies are better in their performance than closed, restricted structures". Tell that to Britain's fishermen. Tony Blair also delivered a lecture on the moral use of power (!) to the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela: "The most important thing is that everyone uses the power they have responsibly, that is what we want to have happen." Perhaps he was getting close to his concern about countries deciding for themselves when he went on to say, "People are worried about energy supply in the future. What countries do in their energy policy... matters enormously to all of us."