CÚPULA DA AMÉRICA LATINA E DO CARIBE SOBRE ... - Funag

CÚPULA DA AMÉRICA LATINA E DO CARIBE SOBRE INTEGRAÇÃO E DESENVOLVIMENTO - CALC
known as ECOSOC, of their responsibility to function and provide a proper
accounting as to where the financial crisis is and where it is heading. At the
same time, I believe, because we need to know the depth of the crisis, it is
important that people be aware that each country must invest to the maximum
of its capacity.
Now is not the time for the fiscal adjustments of the 1980s. This is not the
time to reject the role of the State, as was done in the 1980s. It is a time to say
that given the market’s failure the only thing society believes in is the State,
and this doesn’t just go for us. Who have the American and European banks
turned to? To the State, because banks have lost faith in each other. In other
words, the State, which wasn’t worth anything, came to the rescue. Yet why,
and Leonel Fernandez offered a wonderful address yesterday, have the
economic stimulus and money made provided by the rich countries not gotten
to the other end of the pipeline? Because the money made available by the
rich countries has yet to be applied to productive purposes. It has been used
merely to prevent the collapse of the financial system, not for productive
activities. In our countries, we need to be clear that the State has to assume a
much more prominent role at this moment. Countries must invest in
infrastructure works, invest more in housing, invest in those areas that create
jobs. I believe the United States will have to articulate its policies toward the
small nations of the Caribbean, Central America, whose economies are highly
dependent of the products produced for the United States, and I believe
countries must learn to demand answers.
In the United States, there is a President-elect who will assume office on
January 20. A young, Harvard-educated man. An African American who
charmed the nation. It is now the time that Latin American countries call on
him to engage in a political discussion to ascertain his vision of US relations
with Latin America. We no longer want an Alliance for Progress like the one
undertaken in Brazil in the 1960s, nor can Latin America be looked upon as
a group of leftists, revolutionaries, receiving their orders from Cuba. This no
longer applies to Latin America. In Latin America, the leftists who took up
arms in the 1960s and 1970s have reached power in a majority of the region’s
countries by winning elections. Therefore, these people govern today. Now,
we cannot simply sit and wait for an invitation to talks one fine.
It is my hope, my colleague Chávez, that President Obama adopts a
different view of Venezuela, that he strives to maintain good political relations
with Venezuela, without losing sight of Venezuela’s sovereignty. That he seeks
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