by Gabriela Guerra Rey
Translation by Diana Barahona
Havana,
18 April (PL) As soon as the framework accord of the Sistema Único de
Compensación Regional de Pagos [Single Regional Compensation Payment System:
SUCRE] was signed in Venezuela, Ecuador and other countries called for its
regional use. The initiative arrives today from Venezuela to Trinidad and
Tobago. Shortly before arriving in Puerto Espana, capital of the host country
where the V Summit of the Americas is being held since Friday, Ecuadoran
President Rafael Correa said that commerce would be very much sped up with that
virtual currency.At the same time he expressed his desire that it be converted into a financial mechanism among all Latin American countries so they wouldn't have to use U.S. dollars.
The previous evening, the members of ALBA held a special summit prior to that set up by the Organization of American States (OAS).
The OAS excludes Cuba from its meetings, expelled in 1962 from that continental bloc under pressure from the United States against its socialist system.
The lobby of Puerto Espana was Cumana, 275 kilometers east of Caracas, where the member countries of ALBA, as well as Ecuador and Paraguay as special guests, sought a common position in the face of the challenges of the crisis and the exclusion of Cuba.
Final debates and documents were also centered on the condemnation of the U.S. financial, economic and trade blockade against Cuba and the creation of the SUCRE.
The decisions taken there were focused on the hemispheric encounter on the understanding that these countries would not accept the proposed final declaration in Trinidad and Tobago, considering it obsolete and out of touch with the times.
As a result, the issues discussed by ALBA have become protagonistic, although they are off the agenda of the continental meeting which brings together 34 regional heads of state between April 17 and 19.
The virtual currency has been under negotiation as an alternative in the face of the global crisis born in the United States and expanded, through the international financial system, to the rest of the world.
Another one of its principal objectives is to eliminate dependency of the nations of the region on organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank [and the InterAmerican Development Bank], defenders of the interests of the North and industrialized nations.
The new currency, which carries the name of Ecuador's national independence hero, Antonio Jose de Sucre, will begin to be used after Jan. 1, 2010.
The mechanism of unification will not only be used by ALBA members (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica, Honduras and since yesterday San Vicente and the Granadians) but also by Ecuador and Paraguay, observers of this bloc.
Upon signing the agreement Hugo Chavez expressed his enthusiasm for the initiative, which he will announce in Puerto de Espana.
"This is the birth of the Sucre, Single Regional Compensation Payment System, which will be the first economic and financial element in the building of a regional state of ALBA plus Ecuador," he said.
He recalled that in November of 2008 a proposal was approved for the creation of a system of financial integration separate from the dollar, and that would inject solidity into the South American countries.
This system will consist of the Regional Monetary Council, the Sucre Common Account Unit, the Central Chamber of Compensation and the Reserves and Trade Convergence Fund.
The final document which concluded the meeting in Venezuela and which was carried as a proposal to the V Americas Summit, further expressed its questioning of the plan by Group of 20 developed and emerging countries to triple the resources of the IMF.
The members stressed that what was really needed was to establish a new world economic order.
It should include, they said, the transformation of the IMF, of the World Bank and of the WTO, since their neoliberal conditionings contributed to the economic crisis with which the 21st century began.
