América Latina

Latin America's social movements map solidarity with ALBA alliance

Federico Fuentes

26/05/2013

Opinión

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An important summit of global significance, held in Brazil May 16-20, has largely passed below the radar of most media outlets, including many left and progressive sources.

This summit was not the usual type, involving heads of states and business leaders.

Instead, it was a gathering of social movement representatives from across Latin America and the Caribbean -- the site of some of the most intense struggles and popular rebellions of the past few decades.

This region also remains the only one where an alternative to neoliberal capitalism has emerged. Pushing this alternative is the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA). Spearheaded by the radical governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, it has eight member states, but seeks to relate to people's movements, not just governments.

The purpose of the Brazilian gathering, the First Continental Assembly of Social Movements Towards ALBA, was to go beyond a simple talk shop. It aimed to set up a region-wide coalition that could, as its final declaration states, “build continental integration of social movements from below and from the left, promoting ALBA and peoples’ solidarity against imperialism’s project”.

The document defines ALBA as “essentially a political, anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist project. It is based on the principles of cooperation, complementarity and solidarity, that seeks to accumulate popular and institutional forces for a new declaration of Latin American independence.

"It is a movement of peoples and for peoples, for peoples’ integration, for life, justice, peace, sovereignty, identity, equality, for the liberation of Latin America, through an authentic emancipation that envisions Indo-Afro-American socialism.”

The assembly also adopted the name “Hugo Chavez” in honour of the recently deceased Venezuelan president, who together with Cuban leader Fidel Castro first proposed ALBA.

It was no coincidence that the assembly was held in the state of Sao Paulo at the national education school of Brazil’s Movement of Landless Workers’ (MST), not only the largest and best-known social movement in the region but also a key proponent of this initiative.

Speaking to Green Left Weekly in November 2011, the coordinator of the ALBA social movement’s council, Ruben Pereira said: “At the ninth ALBA summit in Caracas in April [2010], the social movement council was proposed as a space to propose social and economic policies for ALBA, rather than to simply raise sectorial concerns.”

However, it quickly became clear that many social movements from non-ALBA countries, in particular Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), which had met with Chavez to discuss the initiative, wanted to be part of a coalition of all social movements supporting the ALBA project.

Addressing the assembly, MST leader Joao Pedro Stedile said the gathering represented a third phase in the struggle of Latin America’s social movements.

According to a May 16 Comunicacion ALBA-Movimientos report, Stedile said the first phase, from 1990 to 1998, represented “a moment of resistance, in which we were able to halt the advance of neoliberalism and imperialism, and when networks, organisations and continental forums began to emerge, and which had as its culminating point the overwhelming victory of Chavez” in 1998, when he was first elected president.

The second phase involved a series of debates and gatherings that led to the creation of the Assembly of Social Movements, a broad anti-neoliberal alliance, but one that did not have socialism as its explicit goal. This period also involved the election of other progressive governments and the creation of government-based regional integration organisations.

However, the third phase now required social movements to “create a proposal for integration independent of the governments, although united behind the same project,” said Stedile. Social movements needed “an autonomous space, with the moral obligation to criticise and support these governments when needed.”

An example of this stance of critical support was the assembly’s call to end the United Nations occupation of Haiti, which involves troops from a number of Latin American countries, including ALBA member Bolivia.

However, the newly formed Continental Coalition of Social Movements towards ALBA was clear in identifying its main enemy: US imperialism.

The final document notes that since the onset of the global economic crisis, the US has unleashed “an even greater imperialist counteroffensive across the continent, expressed through an increased presence of transnationals in our territories; the plundering of our natural resources and the privatization of social rights; the militarization of the continent, the criminalization and repression of popular protest; US involvement in coups in Honduras and Paraguay; the permanent destabilization of progressive Latin American governments; the attempt to recover political and economic influence through initiatives such as the Pacific Alliance and other international agreements.

“Within this context marked by an imperialist offensive on the one hand, but also by the opening up of new possibilities in the direction of the project outlined by the ALBA governments, coordination among social movements across the continent is more necessary than ever.”

A number of proposals were adopted including the creation of a publishing house, establishment of a network of ALBA movement media outlets, and continent-wide days of action against the occupation of Haiti, in support of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and the Bolivarian revolution, against militarisation, and in defence of the environment.

An organisational sectariat was formed, comprised of delegates from Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia, with the aim of helping consolidate local based chapters of the coalition. Similarly, a coordinating commission made up of two representatives from each country and a number of working groups - media, education, mobilisation/solidarity - were established

Green Left Weekly
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54166

See the: Declaration of the First Continental Assembly of Social Movements towards ALBA "Hugo Chávez Frías"

https://www.alainet.org/de/node/76298?language=en