Latin American, Caribbean countries discuss creation of new bloc

Cancun, Mexico - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday opened a two-day summit of Latin American and Caribbean nations that is expected to explore the creation of a new regional bloc. In the presence of 24 country leaders at the Grand Velas Hotel on the Mayan Riviera, some 60 kilometres south of Mexican resort city Cancun, Calderon called for the "union of Latin American and Caribbean nations for development, freedom, justice and democracy."

At the beginning of his address, Calderon expressed his solidarity with Haiti over the devastating earthquake that killed at least 217,000 people on January 12. Haitian President Rene Preval was at the summit.

Members of the Rio Group met in Cancun, which also saw the second summit of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Foreign ministers drafted a proposal over the weekend for the creation of a bloc of the Americas without the United States and Canada.

At the current summit, however, leaders were only expected to make a formal decision about the creation of the new organization. A taskforce was expected to be created to work on the details, with a view to actually launching it at the next regional summit, in July 2011 in Venezuela.

Calderon said such a new institution would allow Latin America and the Caribbean to project themselves at the global level "with renewed vitality." Integration, he said, is "the most powerful means to reach higher levels of growth and development."

The leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela were taking part in the summit.

Honduras was not invited to take part in the meetings, since its status remains undefined in the light of the June 28, 2009 coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The Central American nation was suspended from membership of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the wake of the coup, and it has not been reinstated despite the inauguration last month of Porfirio Lobo as the country's new president.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310659,latin-american-caribbean-countries-discuss-creation-of-new-bloc.html.