THE CHALLENGES OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION: EMIGRATION

The global repercussions of the COVID 19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exposed the profound shortcomings that humanity suffers from in dealing with events of this nature, which is very serious both because of the serious problems it currently suffers : massive migrations, wars, drug trafficking, etc. as well as those that are foreseen in the future: climate change, with its disastrous consequences, desertification, food shortages, drinking water, among others.

Given the constant apathy, indifference or inability to address them, by the UN and other organizations created at a global level in recent decades to regulate relations between peoples; it is imperative to modify them or create new ones.

Special chapter is marked by wars.

If we base ourselves on historical facts, we see how the last two great wars have been generated by the desire of the dominant powers to snatch their colonies from each other.

These bitter and costly experiences led the winning empires, at the end of the Second World War, to replace in their areas of influence, their traditional method of colonization based on the political and military occupation of territories, for one based on the suffocating control of their economies.

With the defeat of the so-called "socialist camp" in the Cold War, the victorious powers tried to expand that model in all the countries of the globe, seeking to establish a new "international division of labor", in which they would maintain industrial and technological control. and the dominated countries would be limited to having economies based on agriculture, the export of raw materials and tourism, in what was called the neoliberal project of globalization, which included the military occupation of the main oil fields on the planet. To direct this model of domination, the so-called "Group of Seven" was constituted.

The impossibility of exercising that absolute control over humanity, allowed a strong development of the economy of several countries, called emerging, with the consequent rivalries and confrontations to exercise the greatest domain, which have led to war, as we see in the case of Ukraine, in which we have seen how the member countries of NATO act emboldened, since they assume that the role of Russia as supplier of raw materials and consumer of its industrial goods will be replaced by the countries of the so-called Third World, for them simple appendages of their orders, without any personality, thus despising our sovereignty, which does not exist for them.

The truth is that humanity cannot continue on this path that will inevitably lead to its destruction. It is imperative to create a new, democratic and inclusive Global Order.

The only way for this New World Order to be effective is for there to be nations that get involved in those purposes, serving as a dynamo to build global organizations in which all countries participate, where their decisions are made democratically and where there are no neither power pole privileges nor military alliances.

We are aware that achieving this is not an easy task. There are many and very powerful political and economic factors that today dominate the main international organizations, which are opposed to any change that means loss of their privileged status.

The conjunction of the imminent threat of climate change, with the necessary integration of our Latin American and Caribbean region so that, acting jointly with the rest of the peoples of the world, the establishment of a new world order is achieved, implies the search for a systemic solution instead of atomized, dispersed solutions. An example of their ineffectiveness was the recent meeting organized by the UN in Glasgow to deal with climate change, and in which the environmentalist youth leader Greta Thunberg expressed at the end that it had only been "words, words, words ."

THE CASE OF THE ESEQUIBO

We must be aware that the fact that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves makes it a prime target in world geopolitics.

International power factors are playing to the card that a ruling on the Essequibo territory to be issued in the first months of next year by the International Court of Justice, rules against our country, hoping that this will lead to armed confrontations between our country and Guyana and its NATO allies, which justifies the occupation of our oil fields.

That is why we maintain that the National Government must take advantage of the energy needs of the NATO countries to condition any decision on oil exploitation in our country, both to the withdrawal by Guyana of its claim before the ICJ and its return to the Protocol of Port of Spain, as well as the annulment of any NATO-Colombia commitment. We must take advantage of this advantageous position to impose conditions.

Not doing it, more than an error would be a crime.

Due to the foregoing, we have decided to establish our Civil Association in order to join our efforts in these three directions: the struggle to preserve the environment, to achieve a New Democratic and Inclusive International Order and for the Integration of the Latin American peoples and Caribbeans.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Judging by the conduct assumed by NATO countries in their relations with the rest of the world during the Corona virus pandemic, when they prevented the access to supplies and medicines such as masks, injectors, antibiotics, etc. to the countries they call underdeveloped, and the attitude assumed during the war in Ukraine, when they prohibited Russia from using mechanisms that were believed to be assets of humanity, such as SWIFT or social networks, among others, have made the phrase pronounced by Neil Armstrong when he stepped on the moon and said "It is a small step for one man, but a giant leap for mankind" to become the biggest lie in recent history.

That same selfish behavior is shown in their undeniable scientific and technological achievements, and in the development of research and projects in which Latin Americans and Caribbeans have been left aside.

The important advances that have been made in these fundamental areas have not been and will not be shared unconditionally with the rest of the world. They will be shared with countries, as long as they "adjust" to their requirements.

It is particularly risky for our region to remain defenseless in the face of present and future threats to humanity, such as pandemics, climate change, desertification, wars, etc.

REGIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

It is necessary that any integrating organization that emerges in the region has an effective plan of action for scientific and technological development, which should include a real stimulus for the current research centers, not only with the provision of infrastructure, equipment and supplies, but also offering researchers and scientists, salary levels commensurate with the current brain drain to industrialized countries.

The establishment of regional research and development centers is necessary to enable the integrated countries to address their tasks jointly.

This is the only guarantee of success, given the complexity of some of these areas, such as the development of vaccines, medicines and curative methods, both for native diseases and to face future pandemics; the analysis of forecasts to face the inevitable consequences of climate change; the development of aerospace technology; astronomy; in short, so many fields in which we have been left behind in the last sixty years.

Investments in research and development by the productive sector play an important role, allocating part of its profits to it. Here we can see the importance of strengthening the development of the industrial sector, which has historically been the driving force behind technological advances.

It is also important to highlight the role of the social sciences, which is vital for the region's development. In the economic field, it is imperative to generate wealth to satisfy the levels of quality of life demanded by our people. This can only be achieved by overcoming the prevailing pattern of economies with hyper-development of the primary and tertiary sectors, limiting their foreign relations to the export of minerals, agricultural products or tourist arrivals.

ENOUGH OF COPYING FOREIGN MODELS IN THE ECONOMY.

We have reached this state of affairs due to the application of economic models, either imposed by powers that see our industrial development as a competitor of their manufactures; or implemented by political and economic sectors that, disregarding the study of our own realities, copy "marvelous" solutions from abroad.

We Venezuelans suffered in our own flesh such experiences. Such was the case of the so-called neoliberal package during the second government of Carlos Andres Perez, or recently, with the mirage of the State's cryptocurrencies with the application of the so-called "Chinese model".

Without understanding that it was based on the exploitation in that country of the massive industrial investments received from NATO countries, which sought to maximize their profits, taking advantage of the extremely low wages of their labor force. After the current experience, of course they will not repeat it in any country.

The sad thing is that in order to apply this "model" of attracting foreign investment, a series of economic measures have been taken in our country, which in reality have led to important sacrifices for the population; to allocate valuable resources from the reserves of the Central Bank to artificially maintain the value of the currency; to allow galloping inflation, thanks to opportunistic speculation, which has generated huge profits, which have not been converted into capital for development. Had this been done, it would have made the so-called "foreign investment" unnecessary.

These experiences teach us that, for an integrationist process to be viable, successful economic measures, adapted to their realities, must be implemented in all nations. In this regard, the exchange of studies and experiences is vital, as well as the creation of common instances of research in the area of Social Sciences.

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HUMAN RIGHTS

The satisfaction of human rights, and no other, should be the main objective of any integration process in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We can make a first division of them:

1 - The material ones, such as the right to home, food, clothing etc., for which the combination of the necessary resources to cover them and the policies of the States to materialize them are required. For this, it is necessary to develop economic guidelines that allow the integrated States to generate the necessary wealth to achieve these goals.

2 - The immaterial ones, such as freedom of thought and expression, freedom of association, freedom to freely profess religious and political beliefs, freedom of movement, etc., which must be guaranteed by society as a whole, through the State, the legal system, and the various agencies and institutions created for that purpose.

In this sense, an integration process must establish very clear guidelines, while constituting an institutional infrastructure that guarantees their fulfillment, stimulating the free participation of citizens, without which it will not be possible to achieve these objectives.

But in addition to the above, these objectives must be transcended, adapting them to the new realities and needs that have arisen in recent decades.

For example, it is necessary to guarantee the right of human beings to live in an environment in which biodiversity is preserved and protected, as well as the right of young people to fully develop their personality, with policies aimed at executing the terrible scourge of drug trafficking and stimulating healthy recreational environments, eliminating practices that violate international law, such as extraditing nationals to other countries, etc.

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS" AS PART OF A MILITARY STRATEGY

At this point we must especially emphasize the need to extirpate forever the application of so-called "economic sanctions" in the relations between nations, which the industrialized countries implement with the excuse of helping to establish "democratic governments", but whose real objectives have nothing to do with that pregame and which in reality end up causing great damage and suffering to innocent people, in what we can classify as true crimes against humanity.

In fact, what the aforementioned sanctions actually seek is to weaken to such an extreme the defense and operational capabilities of a country, in order to lubricate military interventions, applying at the country level, the same technique used in the so-called "fiesta brava", in which the bull is weakened, bleeding it with banderillas and spears, so that it is exhausted by the time of the final blow.

With that purpose in mind, our country was deprived of the control of the oil company CITGO in the United States, of the petrochemical company MONOMEROS in Colombia, of the gold of England, etc.

As a result of this criminal practice, supported by local agents, the Venezuelan people were condemned to suffer countless sufferings, causing child malnutrition, with its terrible consequences, thousands of deaths, due to the unavailability of the necessary medical supplies and medicines, such as children's vaccines, insulin or anti-hypertensive drugs, etc., just to mention some of the most relevant ones.

COMPLICITY OF "DEMOCRATIC" GOVERNMENTS IN THE REGION.

And if that were not enough, we saw how some governments suspended their commercial flights to our country, depriving migrants and their families of the possibility of being reunited, even in cases of family misfortune, making their stay abroad even harder and crueler.

Over the last decades, our nation has received millions of immigrants with their families who have come from practically every corner of the world, and it has never happened that we have committed despicable acts like this.

This strategy of encircling by hunger with military objectives is nothing new in history. It has been used many times. It was already applied by the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar in the Gallic War, encircling and starving enemies into surrender, and recently it has been repeated by NATO countries in Iraq, Libya, Iran, etc.

This behavior was palpably demonstrated in the Venezuelan case, in the cynical statement of John Bolton, a former senior official of the Trump administration, in which he lamented for not having consummated the invasion of Venezuela as planned.

The latest episode of the above was the recent ruling of a U.S. court, which intends to force the Venezuelan State to pay a transnational oil company the gigantic sum of eight and a half billion dollars.

In this sense, any regional integration process must take the necessary actions to prevent these events from occurring, as well as to contemplate the creation of a Regional Court of Justice to penalize such aberrant conducts and to compensate the very serious damages caused.

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EXTERNAL THREATS

The war in Ukraine has upset the balance in the global supply chain of raw materials, and prompted NATO countries to prepare to take action in search of new suppliers of raw materials.

An example of this was the recent meeting of this military alliance, in which the south of Europe, i.e. the African continent, was set as one of its priority strategic objectives, given the amount of mineral resources that this continent possesses.

Of course, they have also focused their attention on our region, Latin America, which possesses immense reserves of natural resources, vital for the maintenance of the economic power of industrialized countries, including oil, gas, lithium, water, in addition to other large reserves of copper, iron, bauxite, coal, etc., as well as the great potential for developing non-renewable energy.

In this regard, Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Policy and Defense of the European Union, said in a recent press conference: "It is clear that China is playing an increasingly important role in the region. It is the main trading partner of most Latin American and Caribbean countries...foreign ministers have agreed today that this situation needs to be reversed. .... With respect to digital transformation, the fight against climate change, the fight against inequality and all the problems that today affect the economic growth of THE WORLD'S MOST UNEQUAL REGION, EUROPE MUST BE PRESENT." It is not difficult to imagine what these statements mean.

As part of that strategy, the European Union is seeking to establish or "modernize" trade agreements with individual countries in the region, such as the existing Global Agreement with Mexico, the agreement with Chile, or the new one they are trying to impose on Mercosur, which the President of Uruguay defended with "much enthusiasm".

This strategy of aborting any possible Latin American and Caribbean unity through the establishment of separately agreed economic agreements between countries or small groups of countries in the region is not at all new.

It was already being implemented in the last century, when attempts were made to divide our region into regional watertight zones, such as Mercosur, the Andean Community of nations, the attempted agreement between Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, etc., all with the aim of creating "competitive" divisions among our peoples and preventing Latin Americans and Caribbean people from having a single voice. The recent meeting of presidents of the so-called "Andean Community" is an example of how this strategy has been internalized in our region.

The integration system that is born, should have as a priority objective the elimination of any regional grouping such as Mercosur, designing mechanisms that allow a single strategy before the other nations.

The above becomes even more relevant when reading expressions that foreshadow the use of force as part of foreign policy, such as that of German Chancellor Scholz, who in an article stated that:

"For the EU to become a political actor, it must close ranks at home and push forward its militarization." Advocating furthermore that the right of veto in foreign policy, with which smaller states have been able to protect their interests against pressure from powerful member states, should be abolished in the European Union.

On the other hand, his SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil recently expressed similar views: "Germany should now claim to be a leading power" and called for a massive rearmament of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces). A position that is understandable, when both leaders publicly showed "their great concern that developing and emerging countries increasingly refuse to follow the patterns of the old West and develop their own independent policies."

More clarity of the warlike objectives of the EU towards countries that "develop their own independent policies" is impossible.

It is because we do not have a unity of nations that cases such as the sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba, the occupation of the Falklands, or the attempt to violate with impunity the sovereignty of Mexico in the field of energy.

It is up to us to ensure that such events are not repeated. Certainly, if regional integration is achieved, our continent will be a true armored rock, impossible to conquer or plunder by any power.

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REFLECTIVE SYNTHESIS; INTEGRATION, PROTECTION OF OUR FUTURE

The COVID 19 pandemic, the profound alterations experienced by the environment due to the actions of human beings, and the wars in Ukraine and the next one looming in China, have brought to light a paradigm shift in the relations between human beings.

In effect, the World Order established at the end of World War II imploded. It is clear that the planet will not be able to withstand this industrial maelstrom much longer, nor will it be possible to sustain the current structure based on poles of power. This will necessarily lead to the creation of a New World Order, and Latin American and Caribbean countries are obliged to take action to defend our interests.

The integration of our peoples thus emerges as the only way to achieve this objective. But this road is not an easy one to travel.

Certainly, the possibility of the integration process crystallizing and boosting the development of the region causes terror in the NATO countries as a whole, given the vital role currently played by our countries, both as suppliers of valuable raw materials and as demanders of the goods they produce, which takes on greater importance in view of the new realities imposed by the war in Ukraine and the interruption in the supply chain of raw materials.

Bear in mind that since the beginning of the 20th century, any country that tried to achieve development and prosperity was stopped, either by overthrowing or even assassinating progressive presidents, as was seen in Guatemala with Jacobo Arbenz, in Panama with Omar Torrijos, in Brazil with Joao Goulart and Dilma Rousseff, Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, Rómulo Gallegos and Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, Maurice Bishop in Jamaica, Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina, Salvador Allende in Chile, Juan José Torres in Peru, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, and so many other examples.

To which we should add the long list of assassinations and persecutions against progressive leaders, such as Juan Carlos Galán, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, César Augusto Sandino, Lula Da Silva, Rafael Correa, etc., etc., etc. Therefore, it is foreseeable that, in view of the new realities that arise with mineral resources, attempts will be made to repeat events such as these. An example of this has been the recent attacks against the security of the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro and the vice-president of Argentina, Cristina de Kirchner.

But these actions have not been limited to the scenario of violence. An example of this was the attempt to create regional watertight zones (Mercosur, Andean Community, etc.), in order to prevent a Latin American and Caribbean unity of action in the economic field, whose last attempt we saw recently with the meeting of Mercosur and the EU, in which Uruguay tried to reach agreements directly between these blocs, behind the backs of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

At this point we believe that countries that really want regional integration should refrain from establishing individual trade agreements, while waiting for united action.

Now, all these behaviors have been made possible by the fact that they were carried out in isolated situations, which were not part of a solid regional political structure.

The most serious attempts to achieve it occurred at the beginning of this century, with the creation of CELAC and UNASUR, which have failed in the creation of an integrationist organization, a consequence of having pretended to build it, incorporating all the countries of the region under the principle of unanimity in their decisions, facilitating the work of those sectors opposed to the unity of our nations, remaining in the end only in mere words, as has happened with the fervent appeal made by the President of Mexico at the last meeting of Heads of State of CELAC. In reality, absolutely nothing has materialized.

Now, with the presence in power of progressive presidents, whose countries have a combined population of more than 300 million inhabitants, there are again favorable political conditions in the region to achieve such a necessary integration, which will be successful to the extent that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

In our opinion, this integration process should take place on two levels:

THE POLITICAL LEVEL.

With an organic union of countries with very clear and precise goals, limited to the international sphere, without interference or doctrinal impositions among them, respecting the principle of self-determination of the peoples. Of course, with a minimum standard of democratic functioning, such as the universal and secret election of its rulers, to give an example.

This union of nations should promote the formation of a unipolar world, in which power is exercised and shared by all peoples, in a true United Nations Organization, democratic, effective and inclusive, the only way to articulate effective actions to achieve the eradication of wars, the effective fight against pandemics and stop climate change.

As a way to overcome this state of affairs, it has been proposed that the world that emerges should be multipolar.

We understand this multipolarity as the existence of different "poles" of power, in which one or more powers, grouped together, exercise dominion or control over another group of nations. The point is that, given the immense destructive power of nuclear weapons, these poles cannot impose themselves militarily on each other, as has happened historically, and the peripheral nations of these poles become the scenarios of the inevitable conflicts, bloody or otherwise, that will arise between the poles of power.

The existence of a multipolar world with those characteristics would be disastrous for our peoples, since that concept entails the danger that, in those nations sheltered by the umbrella of some pole of power, the development of democracy could regress with the possible establishment of dictatorial and corrupt regimes, as happened during the so-called "Cold War".

We understand that in order to achieve Latin American and Caribbean unity, it is necessary to set up an Ad Hoc organization, initially made up of those nations that share this idea, regardless of their number, to which, undoubtedly, other countries would join in view of the successes achieved. It should have its own headquarters to host not only the meetings of Heads of State or Foreign Ministers, but also the functional structure necessary to fulfill its objectives.

THE SOCIAL LEVEL.

This constitutes the integration itself, which should encompass cultural, scientific, economic and social areas. This is the only way to sustain and increase the integration process over time.

This is why the struggle for integration cannot fall solely on the political parties that support it today. It is essential to get the support of the majority of society, including all or most of the parties, institutions and cultural, scientific, research, popular, workers', peasants', business, etc. groups.

Among the areas to be developed, the issue of the economy is perhaps, at this time, the most pressing. The challenges in this regard are numerous and of significant magnitude, among which we can mention:

- Stopping the enormous capital flight in the region, which already reaches thousands of billions of dollars, which, had the same been invested in the production of local goods and services, our peoples would have achieved an enviable quality of life.

- Resolve the issue of external financing, whose mismanagement left huge debts that ended up becoming a heavy burden on the people and led to the erosion of sovereignty.

- Reverse the control by foreign companies of a substantial part of our economy, especially in the industrial sector.

It is imperative to address these challenges in a coordinated manner. There are many effective measures, but we must begin to articulate them, such as:

- Promoting the creation and strengthening of local capital companies and local recapitalization of profits.

- Allow foreign investment, only in areas of the economy where the necessary technology or capital is not available.

- Establish very clear criteria for external financing and create the Bank of the South.

- Deepen regional interdependence.

- Achieve full industrial development in the region, taking advantage of our natural resources.

- Develop an action plan to prevent the brain drain.

- Promote scientific and technological development, both public and private, with the establishment of joint goals.

Also, the recent tragic experience of COVID 19 with vaccines and other vital inputs, as well as the marginalization of our nations from scientific advances, imposes the need to achieve regional development in this area, impossible to achieve without joint action.

Another important aspect is that of interregional communication.

In Venezuela, for example, the cable companies have access to news channels from France, Spain, Italy, the United States, Germany, China, Russia, etc. in their programming grids, while those from our region are scarce, if any from Argentina or Mexico. To the point that the news we receive from our sister countries, we do so through the filter of transnational news agencies which, of course, are often manipulated.

In addition to the above, we see how many local private media depend on advertising revenues from large transnational corporations, opposed to an integration process, facing conflicts of interest in their daily dynamics.

On the social aspect, there is one point to which we must pay the utmost attention: nurturing our self-esteem, our respect for ourselves as a region.

It has already become a constant practice to disregard the sovereignty of our countries, not only with coups d'état nor with blatant interference in our internal affairs, but in countless fields; either by sequestering Venezuela's gold reserves in the United Kingdom; or by provoking delicate situations, as in the case of energy in Mexico; or by imposing "economic sanctions" as part of a war strategy; or by ignoring TIAR commitments in the case of the Malvinas; or by installing military bases throughout our region under the guise of advising; or by occupying Venezuelan aircrafts at the "request of the Venezuelan government"; either by ignoring the TIAR commitments in the case of the Malvinas; or by installing military bases throughout our region under the guise of consultancy; or by occupying Venezuelan aircrafts at the "request" of the FBI; or by extraditing nationals to the United States; or the recent "visit" of the Head of the Southern Command to Colombia, which seemed more like a "pass of review"; among many, many examples of how they intend to psychologically subjugate us.

In the face of these events, it is not a matter of burning foreign flags or uttering high-flown insults. It is simply a matter of achieving through facts, in a calm but firm manner, the respect that our peoples deserve, which will only be achieved with our continental unity.

WHY CAN'T LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN BE LEFT OUT OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER THAT WILL BE BUILT AT THE END OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE?

Sooner rather than later, the war in Ukraine will end, and the results will be used to try to establish a New World Order.

The leaders of the great world powers are already making selfish calculations about the role they wish to play in its formation. Proof of this is Angela Merkel's recent statement that it is necessary to continue "working on a pan-European security architecture with the participation of Russia",

The peoples of the world cannot allow a repetition of the unfortunate experiences of both the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, when the winning powers alone designed the organizations and mechanisms of the World Order that was established at the end of those wars, which gave rise to structures designed and conceived, fundamentally, to favor the interests of those powers, and which, in the end, have been ineffective in confronting and resolving the very serious problems facing our planet.

It is vital that the rest of the world's peoples begin to work together to develop a coordinated proposal for a New Global Order that is inclusive, democratic and, above all, effective and efficient.

This is the only way to save humanity. By then it is too late.

In view of the interests of our region, it is necessary that the Latin American and Caribbean nations do not remain on the sidelines of these constituent processes of the New Order, with a decisive participation that corresponds to the weight of the region.

The only way to achieve this is with an effective union of our countries, presenting a single voice.

The confrontation currently existing among the nations of the region, with divergent visions of what the world to be born should be like, makes it advisable that the union to be formed be made up, at first, of those countries that share the idea of achieving a democratic world free of dominant poles.

To achieve this goal, advantage should be taken of the current presence of progressive presidents in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, etc., and, in all likelihood, Brazil.

The declarations of the Presidents of Mexico and Colombia in the search for peace in Ukraine are a glimpse of hope for the above. But also the hasty visit of the U.S. Secretary of State to several Latin American countries, demonstrates by itself, the power and importance of our region on the world stage.

A union thus integrated, whose inhabitants total, according to World Bank figures, more than 550 million (representing 90% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean) would form an organization with great power to influence and negotiate with the rest of the world. It would become the obligatory interlocutor of anyone who wants to relate to our region and would constitute a guarantee of the construction of the New World Order on the right path.

Depending on its success, there would be no country in the region that would not want to join this Union.

In addition, it would serve as a seed to achieve definitive regional integration in the areas of science, culture, sports, social and economic affairs, and to act effectively in the defense of the management of our natural resources and the sovereignty of our countries, with all the impact that this would have on the development of our nations.

But first, the countries of the area that are registered as "important NON-NATO allies" (Argentina, Brazil and Colombia) must understand that this condition is totally incompatible with any integration process.

On the shoulders of the progressive leaders of the region rests an enormous responsibility, to make the Latin American and Caribbean Union a reality, which would constitute the most transcendent milestone in the history of our region, after independence from the Spanish yoke.

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TO THE PEOPLES AND LEADERS OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The 52nd. The 52nd OAS General Assembly clearly demonstrated its complete uselessness in promoting the resolution of the very serious problems facing our region.

In effect, beyond the eloquent speeches and the bombastic final "resolutions", everything came to practically nothing. The main issue that anguishes Latin Americans and Caribbean was not addressed: how to achieve economic development and prosperity in line with the aspirations and needs of the population.

Nor, among many other absent topics, how to halt the brutal destruction of the Amazon's vegetable lung, or the inclement emission of greenhouse gases by some of the countries present. The environmental issue was only tangentially addressed, but without establishing effective actions to deal with it. Not to mention mass migration, with all its burden of inhumanity, and which was intended to be solved with the uselessness of a meager handout, ignoring its true causes.

A truly surreal scene, with most of its actors divorced from a reality that mercilessly strikes Latin Americans and Caribbean people.

It is not possible to continue on a path that is going nowhere. A proposal to be studied could be a solution similar to the one applied in Europe in the face of the virtual paralysis of the European Community in the face of the pressing problems it faces due to the war in Ukraine, when it created, parallel to the EU, "The European Political Community", constituting an organization that, without wasting time uselessly polemicizing about the role of the OAS, proceeds to create the necessary mechanisms and instances that can successfully face the challenges of the region.

But to do so, the region's leaders must internalize what such a Union would mean for the well-being of our peoples today.

To size it up correctly, let's look at the demographic changes experienced.

At the end of World War II, Latin America and the Caribbean had barely 150,000,000 inhabitants, the vast majority living in rural areas and illiterate, while the United States had a similar number and Western Europe had more than twice as many, most of them urban and literate. Now, however, the region has more than 650 million inhabitants (more than twice the number of the United States and one and a half times that of Western Europe), most of them urban and literate.

The fact that our countries have inherited from the past economies sustained, for the most part, by agro-export production and the extraction and trade of raw materials, has prevented them from satisfying the growing demand for goods and services of such a large population, whose demands generate profound social conflicts.

In the face of these new demographic realities, it is impossible to continue maintaining this model. It is necessary to build societies that generate the necessary wealth, which must necessarily include the development, shared regionally, of industrial and technological processes.

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OUR LEADERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND THEIR PEOPLEN

The meeting between a divided CELAC, with no unity of approach and not even an operational headquarters, and a European Union that presents itself as a bloc with a coherent strategy and a fully functional structure, clearly demonstrates the profound gap between the two regions when it comes to defending their respective interests.

It is necessary to build a unity of Latin American and Caribbean nations in order to achieve a common conduct, the only way to achieve the progress of our peoples, as they long for and which is evident from their behavior in the last 30 years.

In fact, at the end of the Cold War, most of the region's population hoped that the path proposed by the victorious powers would be the solution to achieve their welfare, so they gave their electoral support to formulas that professed the neoliberal creed, electing almost simultaneously presidents such as Carlos Menem, Carlos Andrés Pérez, Collor de Melo, etc.

They did not provide the expected solutions, aggravating even more the economic and social problems, which determined that in many countries and in a short period of time, candidates opposed to the failed neo-liberal model, such as Kirchner, Lula, Correa, Chávez, Evo, Lugo, Mujica, Zelaya, etc., triumphed. But, in most cases, they did not solve the claims of the sectors that supported them either, limiting themselves to combine political actions in the region, such as the creation of CELAC and UNASUR, with internal palliative measures in the social sphere.

Faced with this new failure, the electorate once again gave the victory to so-called neoliberal candidates, such as Macri, Piñera, Kuczynski, Lacalle Pou, Lasso, Bolsonaro, etc., who also failed to meet the aspirations of their peoples to the point that, once again, we observe the triumph of many anti-neoliberal candidates, as in the cases of Fernández, Boric, Castillo, López Obrador, Arce, Castro, Petro, Lula, etc.

This electoral pendulum between opposing positions reveals two fundamental things: first, the constant search of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples for solutions that will allow them to live in a society with a good quality of life; and second, the inability of some leaders to understand it.

The danger is that, if the progressive sectors do not satisfy the aspirations of their populations, the countries of the region could end up in populism or fascism, as happened in pre-war Europe, being the combination of the potential demand offered by a population of more than 650 million inhabitants, with the productive use of the immense amount of natural resources, which guarantee the maintenance and growth of a prosperous economy, the only way to reach that goal.

That can only be achieved by building the long-awaited unity and integration of our nations.

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Political leadership from COP1 to date has failed to stop the cause of the climate crisis," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro, speaking at the recent COP27 meeting in Egypt, according to press reports. Likewise, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne expressed that "the world is not doing enough or even promising enough to stop these extraordinary dangers we are facing...The loss of people, their livelihoods, their land and their culture is irreparable and there is no doubt that climate change is responsible".

DRAMATICALLY REVEALING REPORTS

In this sense we also appreciate how an American report on climate change, commissioned by its Congress states that:"extreme events, such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts, floods, wildfires and tropical cyclones/hurricanes, are becoming more frequent and severe ... ...in the 1980s, the country experienced on average one extreme weather event every four months; now, there is one every three weeks on average...recent droughts have strained surface and groundwater supplies, reduced agricultural productivity, and lowered water levels in major reservoirs, threatening hydroelectric power generation." and continues "global warming will reduce global GDP by mid-century by 11% to 14%", (about $23 trillion)"

All while the world population grows, we will have greater global poverty.

Similar concerns are reflected in the report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its report this year "Extreme heat waves, droughts and devastating floods this year have harmed millions of people...the signs of climate change are increasingly dramatic," showing concern about the rising rate of sea level that can penetrate coastal groundwater and endanger drinking water and agriculture.... they have therefore urged that global warming should not exceed 1.5°C, beyond which the great ice masses of Antarctica and Greenland, where, incidentally, rain instead of snow, which accelerates melting, fell for the first time, could be destabilized. Its large ice sheet on the giant island has shrunk this year for the 26th consecutive year.

STRONG SOLUTIONS OR SIMPLE DISTRACTIONS?.

In fact, the fundamental cause of climate change has not been effectively attacked, which is none other than the enormous volume of greenhouse gases emitted by a handful of powers that, obsessed with maintaining control of the planet, use irrational industrial production as a means to do so.

In order to avoid taking actions that would reduce such production and therefore reduce their global positions of power, they have manipulated and tried to divert attention from all the initiatives that the UN has tried to take to successfully face such a serious challenge, such as the US proposal at the Glasgow conference to reduce the emission of methane gas, which only represents 7% of the emission of greenhouse gases, and the one now in Cairo, giving the main importance to the fight against deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

It is not that the destruction of the Amazon or the emission of methane gas do not have a very important weight in the increase of the greenhouse effect, but it is of little use to reduce it if no forceful and effective actions are taken against the emission of CO2, impossible to conquer as long as the powers that emit these gases control the UN Security Council.

A situation that was reflected in the UN Secretary General's speech at COP27, in which he "urged the United States and China - the two largest producers of emissions that lead to climate change - to WORK TOGETHER on the environmental issue to end dependence on fossil fuels in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.", ignoring the participation of more than 6 billion of the planet's inhabitants.

THE SOLUTION IS POLITICAL

For this reason, we consider it essential to form a union of Latin American and Caribbean countries to serve as a global dynamo in pursuit of this objective, and to use the enormous power that the rest of the countries have as demanders of goods produced by the most industrialized nations and as suppliers of raw materials.

In short, we must internalize that the solution to climate change requires global political action.

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A sine qua non condition for Latin American and Caribbean peoples to achieve the standard of living they deserve is that their countries enjoy political stability that allows their economies to develop.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Our societies are intermittently shaken by social upheavals such as: coups d'état, insurrections, dictatorships, civil wars, etc.

Behind these episodes have been constantly gravitating the economic and political interests of powers foreign to our subcontinent.

The OAS, which, according to its principles, should have been the ideal body to prevent this and regulate relations between nations, has behaved contrary to this, precipitating our region into the political anarchy it is experiencing today.

See the provisions of the Charter of the Organization:

Article 20: No State may apply or encourage coercive measures of an economic and political nature to coerce the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any nature whatsoever.

Germany is preparing before the end of January the eviction of the village of Lutzerath to extract the coal found in its subsoil. Climate activists are digging trenches and erecting barricades ahead of the announced action of the authorities for the eviction.

This fact is very serious and probably presages the beginning of a brutal growth in the burning of highly polluting fuels such as coal, which considerably increases the emission of greenhouse gases, causing the increase in the planet's temperature and the lethal consequences of climate change.

The fight against climate change and to defend life on Earth requires preventing States from acting irresponsibly in environmental matters. That is why we maintain that the solution for humanity to successfully face the terrible challenge of climate change is political. This will only be possible with the joint action of all the nations of the world, directed and coordinated by a global organization.

Unfortunately, the United Nations, with its current structure, is incapable of assuming this role.

It is imperative to change it before it is too late.

Latin American and Caribbean countries must take a leading role in this task.

But the current political dynamics of the region make this impossible, thanks to the very serious convulsions and political confrontations it has been facing for several decades, a consequence of the inability of the current economic model, based on the export of agricultural and mineral products, reinforced by the mirage of international tourism, to meet the needs of a population that has grown rapidly, from about 150 million inhabitants in the region in the fifties of the last century to the current 650 million.

No country on its own can successfully face the challenge of generating the necessary wealth to bring prosperity to the population.

As long as this problem is not solved and we do not work together, we will continue to experience serious crises of instability, which will make the unity of our peoples impossible.

One element that conspires against this is the stubbornness of some leaders to try to achieve it through entelechies such as the OAS, due to the presence in its midst of the main environmental predatory power, or CELAC, with the chimerical idea of unanimity to undertake actions, which is impossible to put into practice.

Alternative paths must be sought.

The recent summit of the North American countries (Mexico, United States and Canada) can serve as an interesting example in this regard.

In effect, these countries reached agreements in a meeting of presidents that lasted only a few days, on such important issues as migration, drug trafficking, energy, etc. By the way, without taking into account at all the rest of the Latin American and Caribbean countries, neither the OAS nor CELAC, despite the fact that the problems discussed directly affect the rest of the countries of the continent.

This experience should be taken into account and advantage should be taken of the current presence of progressive governments in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Bolivia, as well as any others that may wish to join (which together account for nearly 440 million inhabitants, 70% of the region) to begin to build a functional regional structure with very precise economic, social, and environmental objectives in an expeditious manner.

And when we speak of progressive governments, we are speaking, fundamentally, of the progressive sentiment of the people who elected them, who have, in addition, a very high degree of awareness of what the defense of our Pacha Mama means, a guarantee of the success of such an action.

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It was demonstrated at the last CELAC meeting held in Argentina that this organization is not currently capable of carrying forward the process of unity needed by the Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

This event was limited to a few countries presenting isolated ideas, without much debate, which in the end ended in nothing, such as creating a single Latin American currency; or building a railroad system to link all our countries; or establishing the figure of a Secretary General. Proposals that are really effective if they are part of a guiding project, but that on their own are useless, just as the construction of the Pan-American Highway, conceived at the time as a way for the economic development of the region, was useless.

To top off this inability, we saw how uncomfortable and revealing situations and frictions arose, such as the revelation of epithets uttered by the Chilean foreign minister against the Argentine foreign minister, or Uruguay's annoyance at being considered a minor partner of Mercosur, among other incidents.

The sad thing is that no decisive action was taken in serious cases such as the shameful situation of the Haitian people; drug trafficking; migration; global warming; wars; the rude attitude of the head of the U.S. Southern Command; or her shameless instruction to the International Court of Justice to rule against Venezuela, remaining only words.

That lack of clarity of the reality in which we live, which prevents us from having a common objective, is what makes it impossible to achieve the desired unity.

We reiterate our argument that it is necessary, and urgent, to take advantage of the presence of several progressive governments in the region so that they can be the seed of Latin American unity, elaborating a road map of concrete actions, probably not so ambitious nor so utopian.

Such was the path of the few countries that formed the European Economic Community and culminated in the creation of the European Union. If they had waited for the consensus of all their nations, it would still be just a project.

WORLD REALITY IMPOSES THE PATH OF UNITY.

In addition to the very serious problem of a population in the continent that for the most part cannot satisfy its needs, there is the real and practically imminent danger of the loss of sovereignty in the region, a consequence of both the acute shortage of raw materials at the global level that has produced the conflicts between East and West, and the pre-Christian conception that the leaders of most industrialized countries have of understanding that relations between human beings are necessarily based on a master-slave type of domination scheme.

We have seen how in recent years the proclaimed values of democracy and self-determination of peoples are being demolished for the sake of selfish interests, so it would be an illusion to imagine that, given the desperate situation of scarcity of raw materials in which the major powers find themselves, they would respect the sovereignty of Latin American countries.

If the progressive leaders of our continent do not become aware of these realities and act accordingly, it will be the Latin American and Caribbean peoples who will have the last word.

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