Havana, December 14 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro welcomed Venezuela's leader Hugo Chávez on Monday at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport after which the Venezuelan leader and his large delegation was received at the Palace of the Revolution.
After spending the day in talks, both leaders announced tonight in Havana that they intended to challenge the US sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by signing an agreement on Wednesday that will be a formal call to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean to integrate, creating a viable alternative to what they both see as the rapacious FTAA.

The two presidents spent the earlier part of this evening speaking before thousands of students including many from the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, among them most of the Venezuelan students studying there. The school trains students for free from all over Latin America and even includes US students who would otherwise have been unable to afford their studies at home.

The two leaders engaged in repartee in a friendly and fun exchange with Fidel Castro beginning by pretending to berate the cheering students for not allowing him to begin his welcome of Chávez, saying that they were undisciplined but that it was hard to determine who were the most responsible - the Cubans or the Venezuelans.

He reminded everyone that on this day 10 years ago Hugo Chávez visited Cuba for the first time and quoted from the Venezuelan leader's speech at that time, given at the University of Havana. Chávez had spoken of the need to integrate Latin America and the Caribbean, saying that Cuba is a bastion of Latin American dignity and that, as Pablo Neruda always warned, the peoples of Latin America awaken every 100 years.

Fidel Castro then made the announcement that the integration process would begin with the signing of the alternative to the FTAA and that other nations in the region were welcome to add their signatures.

The Venezuelan president responded that he had now visited Cuba a total of eleven times. Continuing with the light humor of the evening, he added that his intelligence services had informed him that his friend Fidel would be reading from his speech of ten years previously and almost had it hidden from him to prevent the Cuban leader quoting from it. He added that it was an immense honor that the Cuban leader had repeated his words.

On behalf of his entire nation, Hugo Chávez then thanked all the Cuban doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers and technicians who have and continue to serve in his country to help Venezuela out of poverty and misery.