Special focus for Guyana at Brasilia summit
From Sharief Khan in Brasilia
BRASILIA - Host Brazil is attaching particular importance to Guyana's participation at an historic special meeting of heads of government of South America opening in this capital tomorrow. Conference coordinators said President Bharrat Jagdeo is due to arrive here tomorrow for the two-day meeting being held in the Itamaraty Palace. Of primary and immediate interest to Guyanese will be his planned meeting with Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, due here today, and possible talks with new Suriname President Ronaldo Venetiaan, also invited by host President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Those talks on the fringes of this first ever meeting of the presidents of South America as a group will centre on the continuing border problems between Guyana and Suriname and Venezuela. Foreign Minister Clement Rohee travelled to the Venezuela capital Caracas last week to meet Venezuela Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel on the scheduled meeting here between Mr Jagdeo and Chavez. The Chronicle understands that the Guyanese leader and Venetiaan are also likely to meet on restarting the talks that stalled last month after Guyana and the former Jules Wijdenbosch government of Suriname failed to resolve the fresh border dispute centred on the Canadian CGX oil rig that Suriname gunboats evicted from Guyana waters on June 3. Rangel, Rohee and new Suriname Foreign Minister Maria Elisabeth Levens are also to be here. While these non-conference border talks will take centre stage in the short-term for Guyanese, Guyana and Suriname are the focus of special attention here for hosts Brazil. Chief Coordinator for the meeting, Ambassador Ivan Cannabrava, also Under Secretary for Political Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, told the Chronicle yesterday, "We attach great importance to the participation of Guyana and Suriname" at the meeting. Brazil has drawn up a far-reaching action plan that it has tabled with all the other South American countries that proposes closer production, roads, ports and other links among them. That action plan is the centrepiece of the conference in a capital city that itself represents what can be done with integration. "The aim of this meeting is to organise the South American space and Guyana and Suriname are two important members. "This is the great novelty of the Brazilian proposal - we are talking about South America and including all countries of South America in this exercise", he said after one of several pre-conference briefings for journalists covering the summit. He said the end of conference documents would also put emphasis on the "full participation" of Guyana and Suriname, two of the smaller countries on the continent. Key Brazilian spokesmen have been at pains to point out that the South American giant is not looking for the leadership position in the region. Dr Jose Paulo Silveira, Secretary of Planning and Strategic Evaluation in the Brazil Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management said Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana have "great potential" in an Atlantic seaboard axis involving ports, highways and other links among countries of the region. A proposed road linking the three countries also features in the proposal going to the heads in this unique capital of some 1.5 million people. Silveira told the Chronicle that Brazil was still keen on the direct road to Guyana between Boa Vista in the north Roraima state and Georgetown but talks were still ongoing on the critical bridge link over the border Takutu River near Lethem in the Rupununi. Spokesmen were reluctant to go into details of the ambitious action plan before the heads of government but Silveira said several major integration projects have to be identified. The plan will also require regulatory and institutional changes and laws and funding from the private sector for new projects, he said. The plan "demands a new role for the state", he said, adding that if the presidents adopt it, the proposal will need major political support and backing from aid agencies. "This is an historic opportunity before us...(it has) vast potential" for South America, Silveira said. He said the plan calls for new views of planning and concentrating investments. There were preparatory talks leading up to the encounter unfolding here tomorrow and Friday and if the presidents adopt the action plan, an executive committee from member countries will have to be set up to move it forward, he explained. A technical coordinating committee of aid agencies is also projected to help the countries with the plan, studies, financing, establishing specific groups and other aspects, Silveira said. He told journalists from around the world, including Russia, Europe and the United States, that a white paper on Latin America integration is also likely in December and details of the action plan will be published. "This is an integration effort that has benefits for South American countries...it is a model of open regionalism", he said. The greatest factor of the internal driving force for the coming together of the countries is the high complementarity among the countries with abundant resources that are spread all over. "We have been far from each other in the past (when there were) efforts to separate us", but that has changed, the planning czar said. Silveria and other spokesmen here have, however, stressed that the aim of the scheme is not to reduce the importance of existing regional institutions and organisations. Panellists at a round table on the conference Monday felt the summit may mark a new direction for South America. Also on the agenda of this meeting of the presidents of South America are the growing drugs threat to the security of countries, democracy and information technology, among other issues. Brasilia, officially inaugurated in April 1960 as the new capital of Brazil, replacing Rio de Janeiro is well laid-out, with all the appearances of an ultra modern city carved out of a vast savannah region.
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