MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez forecasts Americas summit will “bury” FTAA

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez forecasted that the coming Americas Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina will definitively “bury” the United States sponsored Free Trade of the Americas Association, FTAA.

"I'm convinced the peoples of the Americas will bury the proposal", underlined President Chavez in Caracas during an event with Chinese businessmen that will be building a satellite for Venezuela.

Chavez revealed that in the previous meetings of the Summit scheduled to begin Friday, United States is involved in a fierce diplomatic battle in a "desperate attempt to resuscitate FTAA" and include it in the final declaration.

However he underlined that "Venezuela is a free country and will accept no pressures from imperialism".

"We're in the middle of a battle and we call upon the governments of Latinamerica and the Caribbean to face reality, and beware because the empire immediately begins to put pressure and blackmail governments and countries".

The Venezuelan president said that no matter how the final draft of the Mar del Plata summit declaration works out, "there's an ongoing, underlying deft battle but I'm certain that the peoples of the Americas will bury FTAA".

Chavez insisted that if FTAA had been effective, Venezuela could not be making business with China such as the building of a satellite because "the intention is that the international trade agreement is above the Constitution and legal system of Venezuela".

Laws and the Constitution would be worthless, he said, "we'd have to declare the Constitution null and void, only the empire's (US) constitution would be valid".

"In this sense FTAA is against China and any other European country which dares offer technology", highlighted Chavez.

"I've spoken about this to the European people?I've told (Jacques) Chirac; Rodriguez Zapatero; Vladimir Putin, it's against them also, because the FTAA purpose is to impede any free cooperation relation with China, with Asia, with Europe. It's about imposing over our peoples a hegemonic empire for ever", underlined Chavez.

Finally the Venezuelan president said the struggle against FTAA is not only to defend "what we have, which is not much, but to defend all we can have and achieve".