Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) End Zim, Cuba sanctions: ASA

End Zim, Cuba sanctions: ASA
Tendai Parirewa
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:40:00 +0000

THE presidents who attended the second Africa-South America Summit (ASA), which ended on Sunday on Venezuelan resort island Margarita, publicly demanded the end of illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe and the economic blockade on Cuba.

In his speech to the summit plenary, Rupiah Banda, President of Zambia, tabled a motion demanding an end to sanctions which affect Zimbabwe and Cuba.

Banda's speech followed an impassioned one backing the same policy earlier in the plenary by host President Hugo Chavez, who said that President Robert Mugabe had become the target of an international campaign.

"I wish to give our moral, spiritual and political support to Mugabe and the people of Zimbabwe," Chavez said. "They seek to make Mugabe pay for being anti-colonialist," he added.

"We have to line up in defense of him, his government," Chavez said.

Chavez blamed the economic downturn on "the countries of the North" and said the crisis reveals the failures of "speculative, plundering" capitalism.

"We have to create a new international system, and we're doing it," the socialist president said. "The solution is in our hands. It's not in handouts from the North."

"South-South" cooperation was a buzzword at the summit, which brought together both the African Union and the South American bloc Unasur.

In his speech, President Mugabe said that Africa's industrial development had "been difficult because of a reliance on the very powers that colonized us," he said. "They do not want really to see us industrialized" but we "are proceeding nevertheless".

On the sports front, President Mugabe suggested the ASA (South America-Africa) nations meeting should hold their own World Cup-style soccer tournament.

African leaders including South Africa's Jacob Zuma and Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika attended the summit alongside eight South American presidents from Argentina's Cristina Fernandez to Bolivia's Evo Morales.

Labels: AFRICA-SOUTH AMERICA SUMMIT (ASA), CUBA, SANCTIONS, ZDERA, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 7:23 AM