MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

A positive summit for President Bush

A watered down Nuevo Leon Declaration concluded the two days Americas summit held in Mexico with the participation of the leaders of the entire continent, (minus Cuba), and particularly the presence of US president George Bush in the campaign trail of a re-election year.

Poverty, trade, corruption and governance were the main topics of the meeting in the city of Monterrey that finally managed to draft a much debated statement which already has different interpretations.

The conflicting issue is trade and the US sponsored Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA, a projected trade area expanding from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego scheduled to begin January 2005, but which several leading Latinamerican countries are reluctant to accept in its original proposal unless the US opens its agriculture market. Actually Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru even host Mexico were pushing for the meeting to concentrate on tackling poverty, hunger, social inequalities, and promoting development, (the purpose of the summit), but the US insisted that more trade was the real lasting solution and therefore the need for a decisive commitment to the FTAA timetable.

However, the declaration only calls for following the FTAA "established timetable", (with no date added) which an unconvinced Brazilian president describes as "merely a continuation of what we decided in Miami", but an official White House release added: "that is January 2005".

Regarding poverty and hunger, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called for a "new moral economic architecture" in the region that favours the weakest and tackles social emergencies, but the practical results of the declaration are not too substantial: a call to condone foreign debts of the poorest countries, trebling of soft loans for small and medium size businesses, a reduction in remittances costs for migrant labourers and an overall willingness to double efforts and improve living conditions.

Corruption was officially put on the table following a US initiative, with countries pledging to "deny safe haven to corrupt officials" and to "cooperate in the return of the proceeds of corruption to their legitimate owners". The US wanted to go further and bar corrupt nations from future summits but the declaration only calls for consultation of countries that do not meet the requirements of the Inter-American Convention against corruption. Many leaders felt that assessing corruption evidence is a tricky business. Nevertheless it was agreed to advance on the issue in a meeting scheduled in Nicaragua.

Since the 34 countries of the Americas, with the exception of Cuba, are committed to democracy and free elections, governance as such did not concentrate much attention even when all leaders are well aware that the "other issues" of the summit are paramount for the consolidation of governance.

But a very worrisome example of debilitated and fragile governance did emerge. Bankrupt Bolivia only recently mob-ousted its elected president and there are growing fears in the region that the country is dangerously standing in the cliff of an institutional breakdown with no clear options ahead.

This has forced caretaker president Carlos Mesa to insistently demand from Chile the coastal area Bolivia lost in the 1879 war which condemned the country to be landlocked and has since been the only real cry of national unity. The matter erupted in Monterrey with an exchange between Chilean president Ricardo Lagos who following his country's long standing position argues it's a bilateral issue, and Mr. Mesa who stresses it's regional and multilateral. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been outspokenly aggressive insisting that he has a dream: before his time is up he would like to have a swim in a Bolivian Pacific Ocean beach.

Other neighbouring and regional countries have been more cautious about their remarks but the US State Department is organizing a forum on Bolivia's maritime claim for next week in Washington.

Finally all the region's nations agreed to intensify efforts and strengthen cooperation in fighting terrorist threats.

Overall analysts feel the summit was positive for the US president and his re-election aspirations. Mr. Bush managed to avoid the flak from his Southern neighbours, mended relations with Canada by inviting Canadian companies to participate in the rebuilding of Iraq, and even more significant received the blessing from Mexican president Vicente Fox for his plan to give temporary work permits to millions of illegal Mexican workers in the US.

The next summit is scheduled to take place in Buenos Aires.