Two presidential meetings were held in November in the face of the international financial collapse and the ominous warning signs it represents for the future of humanity. The first, convoked by US President George Bush, brought together the Group of 20, G20, in the National Construction Museum in Washington. The second meeting, initiated by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, united the countries that make up the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), and met in the Ayacucho Salon in Miraflores Palace.
In the capital of the empire the G20 agreed upon an erratic document lacking any precise definitions, except the common aim of propping up capitalism and correcting what different heads of states classified as “excesses resulting from the lack of regulation”. In Caracas, after diagnoses that expounded the graveness of the systemic crisis and its structural character, transcendental economic and political measures were adopted, such as the creation of a common monetary zone, the decision to put an end to the hegemony of the US dollar in international trade, and defence of a multipolar world.
If Bush could boast about having attracted China, Brazil and Argentina to his meeting of imperialist powers, the ALBA meeting concluded with a dinner where the Russian head of state dropped by: a clear outline of the new global political map that the crisis is beginning to draw up.
It would be over the top to call it the “Ayacucho of the 21st Century”. But the spirit of Antonio José de Sucre, the victor of the final battle against the Spanish empire, was present in Miraflores Palace on the morning of November 26, when the heads of state of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Honduras and Ecuador, accompanied by minimal committees, began an unusual debate for these types of meetings. So much so that, seven hours later, following a heated battle of ideas, characterisations and proposals, the heads of states and governments approved the creation of a common monetary zone and gave birth to the Sucre, currency which will act as an instrument for trade, and which moreover is the name of a new mechanism created: the Unitary System of Regional Compensation. (In Spanish the new mechanism is called Sistema Unitario de Compensación Regional, which when abbreviated becomes SUCRE.)
The III Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) was not just one more of the countless presidential encounters held over the last few years. Not only because a different climate reigned amongst the participants, removed from formalities and diplomatic nonsense, but because in line with the features that characterise them, Hugo Chávez, Ricardo Cabrisas, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Roosevelt Skerrit, Manuel Zelaya and Rafael Correa sought out and found responses to the crisis which is shaking the planet from a perspective not only autonomous, but frankly opposed to that held by the imperial centres.
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