Original: Spanish
The integration of peoples and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean is a vital objective for socialist and democratic forces on the continent, which we have long struggled for. Many of our leaders have made this objective their own and invested their hopes in it.
The interests of the big economic powers in the world, together with the multinationals, have done, and continue to do, everything possible so that it does not materialise and achieve the goals that such integration brings. Equally, conservative forces in our own countries, immersed in narrow nationalism leading nowhere, create obstacles to this unfinished task which we inherited from our founding fathers.
Therefore we enthusiastically welcome the recent initiative of several presidents from our continent to create the South American Community of Nations, as stated in the Declaration of Cuzco. This must not be just one more initiative, like various others which have been launched in the past. This cannot simply represent another frustrated attempt to achieve the wishes which are so dear to all our peoples.
In order for this not to happen, the Committee proposes to take forward various initiatives, in both their type and scope, aimed at reinforcing this development politically and socially in all areas of our activities, reinforcing this initiative which seeks to make it feasible that globalisation does not crush the hopes of millions of Latin Americans, but, on the contrary, that it constitutes a springboard for equality and social justice for our people. To achieve this, only the integration and unity of the continent, decisively undertaking the new challenges brought about by a rapidly changing planet, will enable Latin America and the Caribbean, from a starting point of our legitimate differences and our different ways of integrating in the world, to become a decisive actor in a new, more humane and just world of solidarity, to which all socialists on the continent aspire.