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ALBA AS A NEOBOLIVARIAN CHALLENGE: PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS
Abstract
The ALBA project (Alianza Bolivariana para las Americas -Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas)¹ undertaken by Cuba and Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela is important not only in a bilateral sense (i.e., its significance for Havana and Caracas), but it also has larger implications with respect to the dynamics of integration politics in Latin America and US attitudes/policies toward the organisation's two leading governments. Unfortunately the efforts of this unique experiment in providing an alternative model for developmental cooperation have gone largely unnoticed outside the region. Neither the mass media nor the general public, especially in North America, seems to have any idea that ALBA even exists, let alone that it is seeking to mount a challenge to existing integration paradigms and in particular those neoliberal initiatives emanating from Washington. This article is intended to help in rectifying such oversights.
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Author and article information
Notes
Luis Suárez, 'Cuba's Foreign Policy and the Promise of ALBA', NACLA Report on the Americas (January/February 2006), p. 28.
H. Michael Erisman, Cuba's Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000).
Jorge Domínguez, 'Cuban Foreign Policy', Foreign Affairs 57 (Fall 1978): 83.
James Blight and Phillip Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), p. 18 Richard Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1970), Part II.
Jennifer L. McCoy, 'Chávez and the End of "Partyarchy" in Venezuela', Journal of Democracy 10(3) 1999: 64-77; Richard Lapper, 'Venezuela and the Rise of Chávez: A Background Discussion Paper', available at http://www.cfr.org/publication/9269/venezuela_and_the_rise_of_ Chávez. html; Richard Gott, In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chávez and the Transformation of Venezuela (London: Verso Press, 2000).
Fabiola Sanchez, 'Cuba, Venezuela Increasing Ties', a 4 August 2001 Associated Press news dispatch, available at http://www.ciponline.org/cuba/ cubainthenews/newsarchives/august2001/ap080401sanchez.htm
Chávez quoted in 'Chávez Proposes a "Bolivarian Alternative" to FTAA', Granma International Digital (12 December 2001), available at http://www.blythe.org/nytrans- fer-subs/Labor/Chavez_Proposes_a_'Bolivarian_Alternative'_to_FTAA
Chávez's efforts at an August 2003 meeting of ALDI (the Latin American Integration Association) members in 'President Hugo Chávez Frias Proposes ALBA as an Alternative to the FTAA', Vheadline.com (20 April 2004), available at http://www.vheadline.com/printer_ news.asp?id=17942
Shawn Hattingh, 'ALBA: Creating a Regional Alternative to Neo-liberalism?', Venezuelanalysis.com (13 February 2008), available at http://www. venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3154
Final Declaration from the First Cuba-Venezuela Meeting for the Application of the ALBA, available at http://www.venezuelanalysis. com/articles.php?artno= 1433. 'Cuba and Venezuela Sign Wide-Ranging Cooperation Pact', an AIN news dispatch (30 April 2005), available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/37501
Cuban/Venezuelan cooperation within ALBA can be found in John M. Kirk and H. Michael Erisman, Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution, and Goals (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 154-67.
Jason Tockman, 'Bolivia Prescribes Solidarity: Health Care Reform under Evo Morales', NACLA Report on the Americas (16 August 2009), available at https://nacla.org/node/6070; Kirk and Erisman, Cuban Medical Internationalism, pp. 141-6.
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Daniel Cancel and Steven Bodzin, 'Bank of the South Formalized, Aims to Expand to $20 Billion', Bloomberg News (27 September 2009), available at http://www.bloomberg. com/apps/news?pid=2060108 6&sid=a7PU8ZmpUZ3E#; Oscar Ugarteche, 'South American Countries Sign Articles of Agreement of BANCOSUR', Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (14 October 2009), available at http://www.cadtm.org/South-American-countries- sign
Andrea Rodriguez, 'Leftist LatAm Bloc to Begin Using Its Own Currency', Associated Press dispatch from Havana (13 December 2009), available at http://groups.yahoo. com/group/CubaNews/message/1 09595
'Cuba, Venezuela Dominate Caribbean Unity Summit Despite Leaders' Absence', Jamaica Gleaner (30 July 2005), available at http://www.jamaicaobserver. com/news/html/20050729T190000-0500_85065_OBS_CUBA__VENEZUELA. DOMINATE. CARIBBEAN, UNITY_SUMMIT_DESPITE_LEADERS__ABSENCE. asp; Christopher Toothaker, 'Chávez, Caribbean Leaders Meet on Oil', Associated Press dispatch (6 September 2005), available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ CubaNews/message/41925
Larry Catá Backer and Augusto Molina, 'Cuba and the Construction of Alternative Global Trade Systems: ALBA and Free Trade in the Americas', Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 31(3) August 2009: 101-69.
'Monitoring Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western Hemisphere' (11 April 2005), available at http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.41%20 South%20American%20Unity%20the%20one.htm; Staff Report, Cuba Transition Project, 'Cuban Foreign Policy in Latin America: Part II', Issue 52 (3 February 2004); Ken Cole, 'ALBA: A Process of Concientización', International Journal of Cuban Studies 1(2) December 2008: 5.
Verónica Michelle Bachelet of Chile (March 2006-10)
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Memorandum 05.41, op. cit.
Michael Lettieri, 'The Summit that Lost Its Way', Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Memorandum to the Press (3 November 2005); Deborah James, 'Summit of the Americas, Argentina: Tomb of the FTAA' (23 November 2005), available at http://www.globalexchange. org/countries/americas/argentina/3607.html.pf
Paul Kellogg, 'Regional Integration in Latin America: Dawn of an Alternative to Neoliberalism?', New Political Science 29(2) June 2007: 188.
Carlos Malamud, 'Four Latin American Summits and Brazil's Leadership', Elcano Royal Institute, Working Paper 3/2009 (17 March 2009), p. 2.
Dawn Gable, 'Venezuela Obstacle to US Plans for Regime Change in Cuba', Venezuelanalysis.com (20 January 2005), available at http://www.venezuelanalysis. com/articles.php?artno=1357. The State Department report is available at http://www. state.gov/p/wha/rt/cuba/commission/2004/c12236.htm
Philip Brenner and Marguerite Jimenez, 'U.S. Policy on Cuba Beyond the Last Gasp', NACLA Report on the Americas 39(4) January/February 2006: 21.
Quoted from a transcript of his 19 April 2009 press conference which is available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/19/obama_summit_americas_press_ conference_96076.html
Johannes Werner, 'ALBA: A New Dawn or Simply a Flash in the Pan?', CUBA Absolutely (2008), available at http://www.cubaabsolutely.com/articles2008/ALBA_complete.html
'Cuba Estimates Offshore Oil Reserves of 20 Billion Barrels', Global Research (18 October 2008), available at http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle. php?articleId=10601
'Oil - Proved Reserves 2009 Country Ranks', CIA World Factbook 2009, available at http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/oil_proved_reserves_2009_0.html
Kellogg, 'Regional Integration in Latin America', p. 205.
Backer and Molina, 'Cuba and the Construction of Alternative Global Trade Systems', p. 163.