CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

ALBA-The Word Gets Out to UN Countries

United Nations, May 3, 2006 (PL) A summary of the visit to Cuba and their joint communiqué, including with President Fidel Castro, of Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia) is circulating throughout the United Nations.

The document includes the accord signed by the three presidents on April 28 and 29 for the application of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and the Caribbean (ALBA) and the People´s Trade Treaty.

The press note distributed by the permanent Cuban mission to the UN is titled "A New Model of Integration in Latin America and the Caribbean based on equity and respect, and sustained in brotherhood and solidarity".

It refers to the dialogue of the three on the first anniversary of ALBA, originally signed between Cuba and Venezuela in April 2005, for regional integration to create an area free of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and unemployment for the benefit of the poor.

Containing a resume of the principal successes of ALBA in this first year, the document emphasized UNESCO´s declaration of Venezuela as a territory free of illiteracy, due to the massive teaching program with Cuban help, so that 1.48 million people, 76,000 of them indigenous, learned to read.

Other results included the increased trade between Cuba and Venezuela, which elevated from 973 million dollars in 2001 to 2.4 billion in 2005, Cuban medical assistance, which today includes 23,601 health professionals in Venezuela, plus 3,328 young Venezuelans studying medicine in Cuba, as well as 6,525 Cuban specialists working with Barrio Adentro Mission in Venezuela.

Particular emphasis was made on the success of Operation Miracle that has thus far permitted 220,571 surgeries to restore sight to poor patients from 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries, among them 188,389 Venezuelans.

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