Saturday, January 20, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP): Venezuela's leftist firebrand President Hugo Chavez pressed leaders of South America's Mercosur trade bloc Friday to reject neoliberalism and US imperialism as they work to overcome differences on forging a new, integrated economic front.

"In this new era, politics and ideology are taking over as priorities, not markets," Chavez told leaders of the South American bloc on the last day of a two-day summit.

"The neo-liberal era in Latin America is over. We will not allow it to return, much less dictatorships," Chavez, the closest political and economic ally of Cuba's communist regime, said Friday, a day after lawmakers at home voted to grant Chavez the power to rule by decree for 18 months.

"Imperialism is not some made-up fairy tale. The United States has imposed it with blazing cannons and coups d'etat," said Chavez, who often accuses the United States of wanting to oust and kill him. "Every pro-development, progressive effort was overthrown."

He said Mercosur, which Caracas joined just last year, needed to strengthen trade, energy and financial cooperation.

"Much of the trade is not ours, but rather multinationals', which are motivated by profit alone," Chavez argued.

"Are those multinationals interested in our integration? No," argued the Venezuelan president.

Presidents of Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela were on hand for the meeting. They were joined by associate Mercosur members Bolivia and Chile, and observers Colombia, Ecuador, Suriname and Guyana.

Bolivia since December has been knocking at Mercosur's door, and the trade bloc on Thursday created a working group to draft a detailed process of adhesion for the landlocked country within 180 days.

The care given to Bolivia's desired membership was in stark contrast with Venezuela's controversial access to Mercosur, during a special July 4 meeting of the trade bloc, which did not clearly define Caracas's adhesion.

Venezuela's quick membership also has left Mercosur open to criticism it was giving Chavez a major stage for his political views and often virulent anti-US rhetoric.

Chile's socialist President Michelle Bachelet said that economic benefits of integration needed to be clear for Mercosur's population. She argued "progress on the political and economic front also needs to come hand-in-hand with social progress."

Mercosur host and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that finding a way for members large and small to benefit was critical to Mercosur's success.

"Without integration, Latin America has no way forward," Lula said, adding: "If we do not understand the imbalances among us, we will walk away frustrated from every meeting."

Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose country is a key natural gas supplier to Brazil and who nationalised oil and gas sector interests last year, pressed for a higher price from Brasilia.

"Bolivia can't continue subsidising gas for Brazil," Morales said, adding that he was seeking only "a fair price."

The summit created a special, 100 million dollar fund to stimulate the economies of its two smaller members, Uruguay and Paraguay.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Chavez and Lula took an important step toward regional energy integration by signing a pact to build the first section of a 20-billion-dollar, 8,000-kilometer-long (5,000-mile-long) gas pipeline linking Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay formed Mercosur in 1991 with the aim of eventually creating a South American common market. Chile and Bolivia became associate members in 1996.

With Venezuela, the bloc now has a total population of almost 300 million people, a gross regional product of over one trillion dollars and regional trade surpassing 300 billion dollars.

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