[DEBATE] : Morales to South America...letter

[Riaz K Tayob]

"Let's construct a real Community of South American Nations in order to 
'live well'"

Proposal from President Evo Morales to the head of states and people of 
South America, October 2, 2006

In Cusco, December 2004, the presidents of South America took up the 
commitment of developing a "South American space, integrated in 
political, social, economic, environmental and infrastructural spheres" 
and affirmed that "South American integration is and has to be an 
integration of the peoples".

In the Declaration of Ayacucho they declared that the principles of 
freedom, equality, solidarity, social justice, tolerance, respect for 
the environment, are the fundamental pillars for this community to 
achieve an economically and socially sustainable development "that takes 
into account the urgent necessities of the most poorest, as well as the 
special requirements of the small and vulnerable economies of South 
America."

In September 2005, during the First Meeting of Heads of States of the 
Community of South American Nations held in Brazil, a priority agenda 
was approved that included, amongst, other things, the themes of 
political dialogue, asymmetries, physical integration, environment, 
energy integration, financial mechanisms, economic trade convergence and 
the promotion of a social integration and social justice.

In December of that same year, at an Extraordinary Meeting held in 
Montevideo, the Strategic Commission of Reflection over the Process of 
South American Integration was conformed to elaborate "proposals 
destined to pushing forward the process of South American integration, 
in all its aspects (political, economic, commercial, social, cultural, 
energy and infrastructure, amongst others)."

Now at the Second Summit of Heads of States we need to deepen this 
process of integration from above and below. With our people, with our 
social movements, with our productive business owners, with our 
ministers, technicians and representatives. That is why, at the next 
Presidential Summit to be held in December in Bolivia we are also 
pushing forward a Social Summit for dialogue and construction in a joint 
manner, a real integration with the social participation of our peoples. 
After years of having been victims of misnamed "development," today our 
people have to be the actors in finding solutions for the grave problems 
of health, education, employment, unequal distribution of resources, 
discrimination, migration, exercising of democracy, preservation of the 
environment and respect for cultural diversity.

I am convinced that our next meeting in Bolivia needs to pass from 
declarations to action. I believe we need to advance towards a treaty 
that makes the Community of South American Nations a real South American 
bloc at the political, economic, social and cultural level. I am sure 
that our peoples are closer than our diplomacies. I believe, with all 
due respect, that we, the presidents, need to shake up our foreign 
ministries so that they rid themselves of routine and confront this 
great challenge.

I am conscious of the fact that our South American nations have 
different processes and rhythms. That is why I am proposing a process of 
integration at different speeds. Let us walk an ambitious but flexible 
road. One that allows all of us to be a part of it, allowing each 
country to take up the commitments they can, and allow those who want to 
accelerate the pace do so towards the conformation of a real political, 
economic, social and cultural bloc. That is how other processes of 
integration have developed in the world and it is the most adequate path 
for advancement in the adoption of supranational instruments that 
respect the times and sovereignty of each country.

Our integration is and has to be an integration of, and for, the 
peoples. Trade, energy integration, infrastructure, and finance need to 
be at the function of resolving the biggest problems of poverty and the 
destruction of nature in our region. We cannot reduce the Community of 
South American Nations to an association that carries out projects for 
highways or gives credit that ends up essentially favouring the sectors 
tied to the world market. Our goal needs to be to forge a real 
integration to "live well". We say "live well" because we do not aspire 
to live better than others. We do not believe in the line of progress 
and unlimited development at the cost of others and nature. We need to 
complement each other and not compete. We need to share and not take 
advantage of our neighbour. "Live well" is to think not only in terms of 
income per capita but cultural identity, community, harmony between 
ourselves and with mother earth.

To advance in this path we propose:

At the social and cultural level

let's liberate South America of illiteracy, malnutrition, malaria and 
other scourges of extreme poverty. Let's establish clear targets and a 
mechanism of monitoring, supporting and completing these objectives that 
are the basis for the construction of an integration at the service of 
human beings.

Let's construct a South American public and social system to guarantee 
access to all the population for services such as education, health and 
potable water. Uniting our resources, capacities and experiences we will 
be in a better condition to guarantee those fundamental human rights.

More employment in South America and less migration. The most valuable 
thing we have is our people and we are losing it due to a lack of 
employment in our countries. Labour casualisation and the shrinking of 
the state have not brought about more employment as they promised two 
decades ago. Governments need to intervene in a coordinated manner with 
public policies to generate sustainable and productive jobs.

Mechanisms to diminish disparity and social inequality. Respecting the 
sovereignty of all countries, we need to commit ourselves to adopting 
measures and projects that reduce the gap between rich and poor. The 
wealth needs to be and should be distributed in a more equitable manner 
in the region. For that we need to apply diverse mechanisms of a 
monetary, regulatory and redistributive type.

A continental fight against corruption and mafias. One of the largest 
problems that our societies confront is corruption and the establishment 
of mafias that begin to perforate the state and destroying the social 
fabric of our communities. Let's create a mechanism of transparency at 
the South American level and a Commission to struggle against corruption 
and impunity that, without violating juridical sovereignty of nations, 
carries out investigations of grave cases of corruption and illegal 
enrichment.

South American coordination with social participation to defeat 
narco-trafficking. Let's develop a South American system with the 
participation of our states and our civil societies to support us, to 
articulate and banish narcotrafficking from our region. The only way of 
defeating this cancer is with the participation of our peoples and with 
the adoption of transparent measures and coordination between our 
countries to confront the distribution of drugs, money laundering, 
trafficking of precursors, fabrication, and production of cultivations 
that are derailed for these ends. This system needs to certify the 
advance in our struggle against narcotrafficking, surpassing the tests 
and "recommendations" that have until now failed in the fight against 
drugs.

Defense and pushing forward of cultural diversity. The greatest wealth 
of humanity is its cultural diversity. The homogenization and marketing 
for monetary gains or for domination, is an attack against humanity. At 
the level of education, communication, administration of justice, the 
exercising of democracy, territorial ordering and the management of 
natural resources, we need to preserve and promote the cultural 
diversity of our indigenous peoples, mestizos and all population that 
have migrated to our continent. At the same time we must respect and 
promote an economic diversity that comprehends forms of private, public 
and social-collective property.

Decriminalisation of the coca leaf and its industrialization in South 
America. Just as the fight against alcoholism can not lead us to 
criminalizing barley, nor can the struggle against narcotics lead us to 
destroying the Amazon in search of psycho-tropical plants, we must 
finish with the persecution of the coca leaf which is an essential 
component of the cultures of the Andean indigenous peoples and promote 
its industrialization for beneficial aims.

Advance towards a South American citizenry. Let's accelerate the 
measures that facilitate migration between our countries. Guaranteeing 
the full vigilance of human and labour rights and confronting 
traffickers of all types, until we achieve the establishment of a South 
American citizenry.

At the economic level

Complementary and not naked competition between our economies. Rather 
than following the path of privatization we need to support ourselves 
and complement each other to develop and promote our state companies. 
Together we can forge a South American state airline, a public 
telecommunication service, a state electricity network, a South American 
industry of generic medicines, a mining-metallurgical complex, in 
synthesis, a productive apparatus that is capable of satisfying the 
fundamental necessities of our population and strengthen our position in 
the world economy.

Fair trade at the service of the peoples of South America. Within the 
South American Community fair trade must take primacy to benefit all 
sectors, and particularly small businesses, communities, artisans, 
campesino economic organizations and producer associations. We have to 
move towards a convergence of CAN [Community of Andean Nations] and 
MERCOSUR [Common Market of the South] under new principles of solidarity 
and complementation that surpasses the rules of the free markets that 
have fundamentally benefited the multinational and some exporting sectors.

Effective measures to surpass the asymmetries between countries. In 
South America we have at one extreme countries with a Gross Domestic 
Product per capita of $4000 to $7000 per year and at the other extreme 
countries that barely reach the $1000 per inhabitant. To tackle this 
grave problem we have to effectively comply with the all the 
dispositions already approved in CAN and MERCOSUR in favor of the less 
developed countries and assume a group of new measures that promote 
processes of industrialization in those countries, that give incentives 
to exportation with added value and improving the terms of exchange and 
prices in favor of smaller economies.

A Southern Development Bank. If in the South American Community we 
created a Bank of Development based on 10% of the international reserves 
of the countries in South America we would begin with a fund of $16,000 
million that would allows us to effectively attend to projects of 
productive development and integration under the criteria of financial 
recuperation and social content. As the same time, this Bank of the 
South could be strengthened with a guarantee mechanism based in the 
current value of primary materials that we have in our countries. Our 
"Bank of the South" needs to surpass the problems of other "development" 
banks that charged commercial interest rates, financed essentially 
"profitable" projects, conditioned access to credit on a series of 
macroeconomic indicators or the contracting of predetermined provider 
and executing companies.

A compensation fund for the social debt and asymmetries. We need to take 
up innovative mechanisms of financing like the creation of taxes on 
airline tickets, tobacco sales, arms trade, financial transactions by 
the large multinationals that operate in South America, so as to create 
a compensation fund that allows us to resolve the grave problems of the 
region.

Physical Integration for our people and not only for exportation. We 
have to develop infrastructure in regards to roads, waterways, and 
corridors, not just or only to export more to the world, but rather 
above all else to help communication between the peoples of South 
America, respecting the environment and reducing asymmetries. Within 
this framework we need to revise the Initiative for South American 
Regional Integration (IIRSA), taking into account the preoccupations of 
the people that want roadways to be built within the framework of poles 
of development and not highways used only for exports, through the 
middle of corridors of misery, and to increase external indebtedness.

Energy Integration between consumers and producers in the region.

Let's form an Energy Commission of South America to:

- Guarantee the supply of each one of our countries privileging the 
consumption of resources existing in the region

- Ensure, via common financing, the development of the necessary 
infrastructures so that the energy resources of the producing countries 
reach all South America.

- Define fair prices that combine the parameters of international prices 
with solidarity criteria aimed towards the South American region and 
redistribution in favor of the less developed economies.

- Certify our reserves and stop depending on the manipulations of the 
multinationals.

- Strengthen integration and complementation between our state gas and 
hydrocarbon companies.

At the level of environment and nature

Public policies with social participation to preserve the environment. 
We are one of the most privileged regions in the world in terms of 
environment, water and biodiversity. This obliges us to be extremely 
responsible with these natural resources which can not be treated as 
just another product to be sold, forgetting that on these depends life 
and the actual existence of the planet. We are obliged to conceive of an 
alternative and sustainable handling of natural resources recuperating 
the harmonic practices of cohabitation with nature of our indigenous 
people and guaranteeing the social participation of the communities.

South American Committee for the Environment to elaborate strict norms 
and impose sanctions on the large companies that do not respect these 
rules. Local political interests can not be relied upon to guarantee 
respect for nature, that is why I propose the creation of a 
supranational organisation that has the capacity to dictate and carry 
out environmental norms.

South American convention for human rights and access for all living 
beings to water. As a region privileged with 27% of fresh water supplies 
in the world, we need to discuss and approve a South American Convention 
on Water that guarantees access to this vital resource to all living 
beings. We need to preserve water, in its different uses, from processes 
of privatizations and the market logic that are imposed in trade 
agreements. I am convinced that this South American treaty on Water 
would be a decisive step towards a Global Convention on Water.

Protection of our biodiversity. We can not allow the patenting of 
plants, animals and live materials. In the South American Community we 
have to apply a system of protection that on one side avoids the piracy 
of our biodiversity and on the other side guarantees the domination of 
our countries over these genetic resources and traditional collective 
knowledge.

At the level of political institutions

Let's deepen our democracies with greater social participation. Only a 
greater openness, transparency and the participation of our people in 
the taking of decisions can guarantee that our Community of South 
American Nations advances and progresses down the right path.

Let's strengthen our sovereignty and our common voice. The Community of 
South American Nations can be a grand lever to defend and affirm our 
sovereignty in a globalised and unipolar world. Individually as isolated 
countries some can be more easily susceptible to pressure and external 
conditioning. Together we have more possibilities to develop our own 
distinctive options in different international scenarios.

A Commission of Permanent Convergence to elaborate a treaty for CSN and 
guarantees the implementation of agreements. We need an agile 
institution, transparent, un-bureaucratic, with social participation, 
and which takes into account existing asymmetries. To advance 
effectively we need to create a Commission of Permanent Convergence made 
up of representatives of the 12 countries which, leading up to the Third 
Summit of Heads of States, elaborates a project for a treaty for the 
Community of South American Nations, taking into account the 
particularities and rhythms of the distinct nations. Similarly, this 
Commission of Permanent Convergence, via groups and commissions, should 
coordinate and work together with CAN, MERCOSUR, ALADI, OTCA and 
difference sub regional initiatives to avoid duplicating efforts and to 
guarantee the application of the commitments we take up.

We hope that this letter strengthens the thoughts and construction of 
proposals for an effective and positive Second Summit of Heads of States 
of the Community of South American Nations, I leave you reiterating my 
invitation for our meeting on 8-9 December in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Regards,

Evo Morales Ayma

President of the Republic of Bolivia.