Venezuela and other South American Countries Meet with Arab League
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
By: Jonah Gindin – Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, Venezuela, May 11, 2005—Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez joined 11 other Latin American leaders and 22 members of the Arab League in Brazil for the first ever Latin American-Arab conference held in the Brazilian capital. The conference opened yesterday with remarks by Brazilian President Lucio Ignacio “Lula” da Silva and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who spoke of the importance of building economic and political bridges between the two regions.
“Our biggest challenge is to create a new economic geography and international commerce,” said Lula. Bouteflika called for a “frank, open and real strategic alliance,” showing “audacity and imagination,” aimed at opening new commercial horizons and attracting investment. These comments were in keeping with Brazil’s motives for organizing the conference, widely seen as a further effort to give Brazil a global profile, and linked to Brazil’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Yet while Lula’s remarks focused on economic generalities, Bouteflika focused on political issues in the Middle East. “The Palestinians have the right to an independent state,” said the Algerian leader, adding that Israel should withdraw to the pre-1967 borders in order to allow a just, global, and lasting peace. Bouteflika also mentioned Iraq, noting that it is a “source of much uneasiness,” and pressing for “peace, security, and sovereignty,” in a veiled criticism of the US occupation.
Despite the intentions of its Brazilian organizers, the conference was characterized by political tensions stemming from differences in participants’ positions on the recently elected Iraqi government, represented at the conference by President Jalal Talabani. Chávez has been an outspoken critic of the US invasion of Iraq, and has described the elections as questionable, given the continuation of the US occupation and the Iraqi insurgency.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1619