26 September 2009

In a move that is bound to raise alarm bells in Washington, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosts the second Africa-South America summit this weekend in what he called a bid to build “a multi-polar world” to oppose US global hegemony.

AFP - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hosting the second Africa-South America summit this weekend in a push to bolster relations with other countries raising the hackles of Washington and other Western capitals.

Nine South American presidents and some 20 African leaders were scheduled to attend the two-day summit beginning Saturday on Venezuela's scenic Isla Margarita, including Libya's Moamer Kadhafi and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

The leaders were to discuss a broad range of issues, including finance, energy, agriculture, health, education, science and tourism, with Chavez pledging the meeting would be forward-looking and feature an "ambitious agenda."

"We don't want this to be just another summit, we want it to lay the path for the next 10 years," the firebrand leftist leader said from New York, where he attended the United Nations General Assembly.

The Venezuela summit is also likely to feature tirades launched at the United States and other global powers, as well as Chavez's recurring arguments about the failures of capitalism.

In his first speech to the UN General Assembly since taking power four decades ago, Kadhafi launched into a rambling, 95-minute diatribe where he berated Western powers and accused the global body of failing to prevent millions of deaths as he demanded trillions of dollars in colonial reparations.

But Chavez, a longtime US foe, told CNN on Thursday that he wanted a "good relationship" with the administration of US President Barack Obama, similar to the ties shared between Caracas and Washington when Bill Clinton was in the White House.

On Friday, foreign ministers from the participating countries met to finalize a joint declaration to be issued at the end of the meeting.

One top priority will be energy cooperation, with Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez noting that the two regions have "24 percent of the world's hydrocarbon riches."

"We have the great strategic challenge of bridging the gap," he said. "We do not communicate. Here Africa and South America will begin to work on filling in the gaps."

The leaders are also set to discuss drug trafficking, a long-standing problem in South America, and a new concern for countries in west Africa.

The African Union has expressed concern that west Africa is becoming a new route for drugs to enter Europe, and insisted the issue be discussed at the summit.

While the presence of cocaine in west Africa remains pales in comparison to some other regions, seizures have increased seven-fold in the last decade, to 5.5 tonnes in 2007, according the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Drug labs capable of producing ecstasy, cocaine and heroin have been uncovered in countries like Guinea, and officials are concerned the problem could grow.

"Faced with stricter enforcement in Europe, in the Schengen zone, South American traffickers prefer to take the African route to get small amounts of cocaine to the European market," said Gilles Sabatier, interior security attache to the French ambassador to Venezuela.

South American countries, including Colombia, have taken African concerns seriously.

"Commanding General Oscar Naranjo of the Colombian national police has invited African nations' police chiefs to attend drug law enforcement strategy conference in Colombia," said Jay Bergman, the regional director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, in Bogota.

But he cautioned that "the best option we have is to attack this drug route here in South America... It's much easier to attack the cocaine pipeline at the source end than the distribution end."

On Isla Margarita, a scenic tourist destination, checkpoints were set up, manned by Venezuelan military personnel and guns were banned across the resort in anticipation of the world leaders' arrival.

Among those expected from South America were Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Bolivian leader Evo Morales and Argentine President Cristina Kirchner.

African leaders expected to attend include South African President Jacob Zuma and the Democratic Republic of Congo's Joseph Kabila.

The summit is the second time leaders from the two regions have gathered, after a first such meet in Abuja, Nigeria in 2006.

Kadhafi found a warmer welcome in Venezuela for his preferred sleeping quarters -- a traditional Bedouin tent -- than in New York, where his attempts to pitch his olive green tent in New York's Central Park and an estate outside Manhattan were thwarted by local officials.

france24