MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuador joins ALBA this week, announced President Chavez

President Rafael Correa becomes the ninth leader to officially join the Bolivarian project

Ecuador together with the Caribbean islands of Saint Vincent and Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda will be joining the Venezuelan sponsored Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas, ALBA, during a summit this week in Venezuela, announced President Hugo Chavez.

The Venezuelan leader said the Ecuador incorporation ceremony will take place in the region of Carabobo, during the commemoration on June 24th of the 188 anniversary of the battle which sealed Venezuela’s independence. Patriot troops under Simon Bolivar definitively defeated the Spanish colonial forces.

Chavez added that with Ecuador and the Caribbean islands the ALBA group “continues to expand”. Alba with its two main members Venezuela and Cuba is contrary to free trade and promotes “Socialist solidarity”. Ecuador so far was acting as an observer.

“We’re incorporating Ecuador with companion President Rafael Correa, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the east Caribbean and Antigua and Barbuda in the west Caribbean”, underlined Chavez. “We’re now nine countries from Latinamerica and the Caribbean and we keep growing”, he added during his radio and television program, “Hello President”.

ALBA is “a new space under construction, a radical space we could call it, although not the only space, but the most dynamic, the strongest in building an alternative to neo-liberalism that has condemned Latinamerica to poverty and misery”.

Saint Vincent and Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda are members of the British Commonwealth.