MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Wikileaks messages generate rift at Mar del Plata’s summit on education and democracy

President Cristina Fernandez contained the Bolivarian leaders

The commitment to end illiteracy in the next five years and the overwhelming approval of a democratic clause in support of institutional democracy was the outstanding consensus of the Ibero-American leaders’ summit held in Mar del Plata hosted by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

A standing homage to the late former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and farewell speeches praising the figure of the charismatic Brazilian leader Lula da Silva who is stepping down next January after eight years in office, also made the two days meeting quite homogeneous for the smiling “family picture”.

However the summit also showed a major split between the so called Bolivarian countries (Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador) whose leaders, with the exception of Ecuadorian Rafael Correa did not participate and tried unsuccessfully to promote an official condemnation of United States “imperial diplomacy of espionage and conspiration” based on the thousands of Wikileak messages that are being released.

According to summit sources President Cristina Fernandez with the support of Brazil, Mexico and Chile blocked such an initiative, which helps to explain the notorious absences (Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega) and killed a further attempt by Bolivarian representatives during the summit’s discussions.

Apparently Mrs. Kirchner was satisfied with the personal apologies from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier in the week (questioning her mental health), plus the fact she was involved in some of the cables regarding Bolivia, but overall most countries prefer to have normal harmonic relations with Washington in the current global scenario.

The first to open fire was Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, who said that the Wikileaks revelations “uncover the imperial diplomacy...and make its true intentions transparent...the blatant intervention in our internal affairs”.

Along the same line, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said that the leaks are unveiling “an immense operation of political intrigue, of espionage, of seeking influence through illegitimate channels,” and reveal the “permanent persecution of the Bolivarian Revolution, of the Venezuelan people”.

Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera also attacked the “imperial diplomacy of espionage and conspiracy” of the United States and urged countries of the region, particularly Argentina, not to become divided.

“Transparency is the best defence against conspiracy. We have nothing to hide. Let us not allow this information, this way of proceeding to create distances between us – it cannot be, they can’t divide us” he said, speaking directly to Cristina Fernandez.

Garcia Linera was referring to leaks that showed Mrs. Kirchner willing to collaborate with the United States in its Bolivia strategy, as well as her description of President Evo Morales as a “difficult person”.

However and even when he did not intervene in the leaks discussions, President Lula da Silva has repeatedly said that he has read some of the leaked messages, most of them “stupidities” which indicate two things: that the Americans are not so bright as many believe, secondly that diplomats will have to work harder and get their messages rights.

Uruguay’s Jose Mujica with a similar posture has repeatedly said that the messages are “a lot of nonsense” and that is the diplomats’ jobs. However, “just imagine what our messages say about the Americans”.

But with the official tempo imposed by the Argentine president, differences were given a very low profile and the two main issues, the motto of the meeting “Education for Social inclusion”) and democracy were highlighted.

The final declaration calls for full literacy in all of the region’s countries by 2015, with the support of 110 billion US dollars in budget resources managed by the different countries during the coming decade (2021). According to UNESCO statistics Latinamerica has 39 million illiterate and 110 million teenagers who never finished primary school.

“The incorporation of the concept of inclusion in the educational system in such a way that no person is left out from a pertinent learning opportunity” states the declaration.

The other big issue was the signing of the so-called “democratic clause” that would suspend from the Ibero-American conference any countries that break away from institutional democracy. The initiative had been in the oven for some time because of the Honduras case, but it became a priority following the recent police forces mutiny in Ecuador which almost ended with the life of President Correa.

This meeting marked “a before and after” in the history of the region, because “we are establishing procedures so that never again in our America will those unable to win at the polls be able to conspire against legitimately elected governments”, said Correa.

President Cristina Fernandez stressed how necessary it was that all “be ready to move forward with strength and determination, cutting all ties with countries that try to do away with democracy or succeed in doing so”.

“The problems of democracy can only be resolved with more democracy” said the Salvadoran Mauricio Funes, who asked the summit not to “punish” the Honduran people for the coup of June 2009.

The leaders signed several other documents among them the usual Argentine sponsored condemnation of the UK over the disputed Falklands/Malvinas Islands sovereignty and the current oil industry activities.

After transferring the pro-tempore presidency of the Ibero-American community to Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, President Cristina Fernández officially closed the Summit. Asunción is scheduled to host next year's Summit in October.

Several leaders left early for their respective countries, which shortened the summit and meant that some of the presidents – Jose Mujica of Uruguay, Sebastian Piñera of Chile and Alan Garcia of Peru – were left with no chance to address the summit.