STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Venezuela calls for Andean crusade against poverty By Daniel Flynn VALENCIA, Venezuela, June 23 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his Andean neighbors on Saturday to give an ideological core to their trade integration efforts by attacking poverty and rejecting neo-liberal economic policies. Chavez, opening a summit of Andean presidents, injected a distinct political tone into the two-day meeting, which agreed economic integration goals, a joint anti-drugs strategy and the future creation of a common Andean passport for the region. "The problem of integration is political, not economic," the outspoken paratrooper-turned-president told his colleagues from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru who in speeches before him had largely focused on common trade and economic goals. "Let's not put the cart before the horse. It's the horses of politics that pull the carts of economic development," Chavez said, making a plea for a shared ideological vision. He opened the summit on the eve of the 180th anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo, in which Latin America's 19th century nationalist hero Simon Bolivar defeated Spanish forces and opened the way for the independence of the whole continent. "Bolivar was our common Liberator," Colombian president Andres Pastrana told the meeting, held at Valencia, near the Carabobo battlefield and 100 miles (158 km) west of Caracas. But while the other leaders hailed economic advances by the five-nation Andean group, whose total internal trade is forecast to surpass a record $6 billion this year, Venezuela's Chavez questioned this purely economic view. "Be careful with the economic currents of neo-liberalism. That's not enough. What about poverty?" Chavez asked. He warned his colleagues that poverty was a "dangerous, explosive" problem that posed the biggest threat to their nations. Since his election in 1998 six years after leading a failed coup bid, Chavez has often criticized what he calls "savage" neo-liberal capitalism, echoing similar views expressed by veteran Cuban President Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II. "NEO-LIBERALISM THE ROAD TO HELL" "Is neo-liberalism the model for integration? We in Venezuela think not. It's the road to hell, a perverse road that favors the (rich) minority and excludes the (poor) majority," the Venezuelan leader said. He made a point of stressing that his left-leaning, nationalistic government was engaged in promoting a peaceful "revolution" in his oil-rich but poverty-plagued country. Chavez' fiery revolutionary rhetoric jarred with the more measured speeches of his colleagues, who preferred to focus on the achievements and challenges of the Andean Community which was formed 32 years ago and groups 113 million inhabitants. Ecuadorean President Gustavo Noboa stressed the importance of forging a regional common market by 2005 to be able to successfully compete in the U.S.-backed hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) proposed for the same date. "Our Andean Community must be well prepared for the FTAA negotiations," he said. Colombia's Pastrana hailed an Andean Anti-Drugs Plan agreed at the Valencia summit. This aims to coordinate common strategies to eradicate drugs cultivation and trafficking, which affects all the Andean nations. "This is our own plan," said Pastrana, whose country is already the focus of a major U.S.-backed anti-drugs offensive. The leaders praised a proposal, also adopted by the summit, to create a common Andean passport for citizens of the region to be introduced in 2005. "We will assume an Andean identity," Bolivian President Hugo Banzer said. >From next year, citizens of the five nations would be able to travel in the group using only national identity cards. Peru, whose president-elect Alejandro Toledo did not attend, was represented by Prime Minister Javier Perez de Cuellar. 14:47 06-23-01 Peru's President-Elect Heads to U.S By RICK VECCHIO .c The Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo heads Sunday to the United States, where he will promote Peru's rebounding democracy and seek emergency aid to tide over the financially troubled nation until a long-term recovery program can take root. Toledo, Peru's first freely elected president of Indian descent, defeated former President Alan Garcia in a June 3 runoff election and will take office July 28. ``The purpose of the trip first of all is to tell the world that Peruvians have successfully taken back their democracy,'' said Toledo, who arrives in New York late Sunday for meetings with international investors and business leaders. Toledo said he will meet with President Bush and members of Congress on Tuesday in Washington before heading to Europe for an eight-day tour. The 55-year-old Stanford University-trained economist said he wants to assure investors and policy makers that political and legal stability has returned to Peru since the fall of ex-President Alberto Fujimori's autocratic regime in November. As president-elect, Toledo has a mandate to restore faith in Peru's damaged democracy, stamp out rampant corruption and resuscitate the country's stalled $54 billion economy, which shrank for a fifth straight month in April. His main objective for the U.S.-European trip is to draw $400 million in ``emergency'' aid to help jump-start Peru's stalled economy, said Fernando Villaran, a member of Toledo's economic team. Villaran said the aid is needed to help fund a broad program of public works projects that would provide 400,000 short-term jobs in the first two years of Toledo's five-year term to stave off potential social unrest among Peru's poor majority. Peru would pay $200 million into the program, he said. ``There are huge social expectations from the population generated around the presidential campaign and we must have the capacity to respond very quickly,'' Villaran said. Toledo campaigned largely on a populist platform, pledging to create 2.5 million jobs, lower taxes and raise salaries for public workers. But Villaran said the effects of a long-term economic recovery plan won't be felt for several months. About 54 percent of Peru's 26 million people live in poverty and only one every two in the labor force has steady work. One issue that is sure to confront Toledo when he arrives in the United States is the ``terrorist collaboration'' conviction handed down Wednesday in a Peruvian court against New York native Lori Berenson, 31. Supporters of the former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student hope that Toledo will grant her a pardon. Berenson was convicted and sentenced to life in 1996 by a secret military court, but under pressure from Washington, the conviction was annulled last year, leading to her civilian retrial. Most Peruvians believe she is guilty. Her parents, who have lobbied intensely for her freedom, have made powerful allies on Capitol Hill. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who serves the Berensons' district, has called the retrial ``a public circus.'' Maloney said she plans to circulate a letter among her colleagues urging them to pressure Toledo to free Berenson. Toledo has avoided commenting on Berenson's case, but his spokesman said he expects the issue to come up during his U.S. tour. AP-NY-06-23-01 1130EDT ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
