Robert Buddan, Contributor
THE IMPACT of Hurricane Katrina on the oil-producing states of the U.S. Gulf Coast caused oil prices to rise to US$70 per barrel last week. Venezuela does not believe that oil prices will go below US$60 per barrel in the near future. How then do countries of the Caribbean survive competitively when neither the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) nor the World Bank promises or provides any concessionary oil facility for crises such as these?
The only certain buffer to the Caribbean is the Venezuelan Alternative Bolivariana par alas Americas (ALBA-Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas). CARICOM's decision to recognise the legacy of Simon Bolivar on September 6 shows realism about taking advantage of the benefits of ALBA and its centrepiece, the PetroCaribe initiative, despite U.S. opposition to both.
CARICOM has to make use of these opportunities when they come along. The ALBA initiative has come at the right time and from the right country. It has come when oil prices are historically high and when Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the only country in the world willing to share its oil bonanza, offers to help economically vulnerable neighbours. It has come when regional integration is in favour throughout the Americas, but when Latin America and the Caribbean need a noble alternative to the contentious FTAA, proposed on U.S. terms. It has come at a time when the United States is the world's only superpower and when countries in the Americas believe that there should be counter powers able to check and balance that power. Latin America has formed the South American Community of Nations to do so.
BOLIVAR'S LEGACY
ALBA and the South American Community of Nations, both formed in 2004, are expressions of Simon Bolivar's dream for Pan-American unity. Simon Bolivar Day is celebrated in Venezuela and Ecuador on July 24. The 14 CARICOM countries that have signed the PetroCaribe Agreement will acknowledge the value of this legacy on September 6.
Thanks to Bolivar, the Americas can claim the longest experience with regionalism. Bolivar first proposed the idea of uniting the nations of the Americas at the Pan- American Congress of1826. The Organisation of American States (OAS) evolved from this idea. George Bush himself acknowledged the importance of the Pan-American idea in 2001 by declaring April 8 Pan-American Day. Bush, however, had the FTAA in mind as the vehicle through which to promote Pan-Americanism. ALBA has emerged as the better alternative.
A number of countries have already entered into separate regional schemes of their own. But ALBA seeks to accelerate and complement these schemes. Under ALBA, a large number of agreements have been signed between Venezuela and other Latin American countries.
ALBA AND WESTERN MODELS
ALBA is a comprehensive programme that goes beyond PetroCaribe. Its philosophy of development challenges the western model of corporate globalisation. At its core is a 'compensatory fund for structural convergence' to manage and distribute financial aid to the most economically vulnerable countries in the hemisphere. PetroCaribe and similar arrangements (Petrosur and Petroandino) are the mechanisms through which it proposes to do so in the Caribbean and Latin America.
The western model of liberalisation and privatisation has failed to address poverty in the region. After many years, Latin America remains the region with the highest level of income inequality where over 200 million black and indigenous people make up the mass of unemployed and excluded. The quality of foreign investments has not produced growth that reaches the poor and the quality of jobs has not improved the dignity of life.
ALBA goes beyond trade to propose oil alliances, social banking, an integrated Latin American media, health and literacy programmes, support for national development, and food self-sufficiency to address poverty. The FTAA is a limited idea with no arrangement to assist countries suffering from natural disasters, oil shocks or poverty. There is nothing in the FTAA to match an arrangement like that of PetroCaribe and the kind of investments that Jamaica will get to upgrade its petroleum refining capacity. The FTAA has nothing different for a country like Haiti with special needs. ALBA promises Haiti assistance in energy, health and education.
The FTAA excludes Cuba, but ALBA has a special role for Cuba and its army of social professionals - medical and educational - willing to deploy their skills to fight poverty throughout the hemisphere. ALBA combines the resources of Venezuela, Latin America's largest oil producer, with that of Cuba, the region's most developed country in terms of social resources. ALBA is therefore most advanced between Venezuela and Cuba. Both countries aim to make the region free of illiteracy. Cuba has already made 1.5 million Venezuelan's literate and Venezuela hopes to become the second country (after Cuba) to be free of illiteracy in the next decade.
Cuba will help Venezuela this year to establish 600 diagnostic centres, 600 rehabilitation and physiotherapy departments and 35 high technology centres offering health-care services to Venezuelans free of charge. Cuba will train 40,000 doctors and 5,000 health technology specialists in Venezuela. Jamaicans and hundreds of thousands of people in the region will be able to get free eye operations in Cuba and Venezuela from this year. Cuba is providing 30,000 doctors and other health care personnel to Venezuela. The FTAA offers none of this.
ALBA AND DEMOCRACY
ALBA believes that the real threat to democracy comes from poverty and exclusion. It favours a socially oriented form of regional cooperation. The countries leading this form of cooperation, Venezuela and Cuba, are precisely the two countries that the United States deems to have undemocratic leaders. However, the model of free trade, free markets and free elections supported by the FTAA, the IMF and the 'development' policies of the World Bank exclude too many from the benefits of democracy. None provide any special financial oil facility to poor countries. They offer only austerity measures for the poor and privatisation (of public wealth) to the rich in the private sector.
ALBA's democratic philosophy is that the relations between states and people should be motivated by humanitarian principles not by profiteering off trade. This is exactly what oil market speculators are doing to drive up prices. Chavez regards himself and his model of development as a new form of socialism for the 21st century. His socialism is much different from that of Cuba. He considers himself a Christian socialist and uses Jesus' mission to the poor as his model.
In secular terms, Venezuela's press remains free, there is a mixed economy with a role for the private sector, and there are no political prisoners. Chavez himself has been freely elected and on top of that convincingly won a referendum two years ago to continue in office. He also calls for national reconciliation and democratic elections in Haiti. Yet, the U.S. said Venezuela and Cuba are a threat to stability in the region.
CARICOM believes otherwise. In his address to the Economic Commission of Latin America in Chile a few days ago, Prime Minister Patterson said of PetroCaribe: "The recent PetroCaribe Energy Cooperation initiative extended by Venezuela to the countries of the Caribbean, in the wake of rising oil prices, vividly demonstrates that there is an inherent advantage by our uniting around a common vision, a unifying objective and mutually beneficial set of goals for the region." Let us join Latin Americans in appreciating the legacy of Simon Bolivar and the developmental possibilities of that legacy available under the Bolivarian Initiative.
You can send your comments to Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or infocus@gleanerjm.com.
