Wikipedias definition here.
My conjecture follows:
ALBA is a Venezuelan based trade agreement that aims to distance (but not divide) it's members from the American/western dominion of global trade. By doing so the members theoretically side step the heavy hand of what has become the most popular and "effective" means of stern international enforcement: economic sanctions.
The dream of ALBA is one that entails a fluid and competitive regional marketplace that is self sufficient enough to allow the Bolivarian vision of Hugo Chavez to spread throughout both South and Central America (as well as satellite island states) yet internationally connected to the point where economic sanctions are futile as they bear as much punishment for the prosecuting nation or group of nations as they do the intended target. In short, imagine the impossible; an American economic sanction of China or vise versa.
This plays into both the theory of Bolivarian Hegemony and the Counter-Core as the initiative is further evidence of an international effort to resist reliance on the western global economy through regional/ideological collaboration.
The ALBA effect has spread from the initial four nations (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba) to Ecuador and most recently the Caribbean:
Caracas, Apr 26 (Prensa Latina) Venezuela will hold from Apr 28-29 the Second Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas in Barquisimeto, 186 miles west of Caracas.
This ALBA meeting trails the Energy Summit that birthed the Union of South American Nations (Union de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), which compares to the early EU but with a broader social lean.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the Summit will assess ALBA's performance since its Dec 14, 2006 foundation by Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).
The project, joined by Bolivia and Nicaragua, carries economics and trade hand in hand with cooperation and interchange.
Along with a refinery in Nicaragua able to process 150,000 oil barrels daily, Cuba and Venezuela will train 200,000 Latin American doctors in ten years and run a publishing house.
Leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines signed last February a Political Declaration in support of ALBA which they will promote with fresh proposals.[Prensa Latina, 4/26/07]
6 comments:
I don't think Chavez will ever have my hand in marriage at this rate.
Not into the rugged, blustering type, eh Baron?
Probably just as well. Not too likely you'd be able to compete against his boyish fascinations with choo-choo trains and Teletubbies.
I own fifty thousand chavez choo-choo trains and I will shut. this. little. choo. choo. train. operation. down.
LOL!!
Bring it cupcake...
Certainly innovative in a sense but also probably short-lived unless these friends of Chavez turn into quasi-dictators as he has been. Calderon and Lula are already beginning their inevitably successful efforts to become the leaders in the region, not Chavez.
Unless Chavez were to take this competition personally and support the forces that threaten to tear the two great nations apart....
Eddie,
It wouldn't surprise me. His tacit support of FARC and ELN along with his disdain for Uribe illustrate his willingness to cause strife in non-Bolivarian neighbor states.
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