BRASILIA, 11 May 2005 — South American and Arab leaders opened an unprecedented summit yesterday aimed at ushering in a new wave of cooperation and undercutting the international influence of the United States.
With 9,000 soldiers posted around the city and military helicopters buzzing overhead, 16 heads of state and top officials from 34 South American, Middle Eastern and North African nations gathered for the first Summit of South American-Arab Countries.
“Today, we are in front of a historic opportunity to launch the foundation for a solid bridge of cooperation between South America and the Arab world,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in his opening remarks.
Da Silva said the leaders must band together to ensure that free trade helps the developing world’s masses who live in misery, instead of benefiting only rich countries and multinational corporations.
He singled out agricultural subsidies developed nations give their farmers, saying they must be slashed to ensure “poor countries receive the benefits of globalization.”
“We want to make concrete and lasting steps in the struggle for development and social justice,” da Silva said.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the two regions may lie far apart but have a combined population of more than half a billion people and share strong cultural links. About 10 million South Americans are of Arab descent.
“More than 600 million people are looking with hope to the summit of hope, the Brasilia summit,” he said.
The summit started amid the biggest show of security in the Brazilian capital since da Silva was sworn into office two and a half years ago as the first elected leftist leader of Latin America’s largest country. Police said four pistols were confiscated from American security guards protecting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ahead of the summit because proper paperwork had not been filled out for them to carry the weapons.
The leaders will hold two days of talks, and are expected to join forces by signing a “Declaration of Brasilia.”
In the draft declaration, the leaders pledge to support sweeping political and economic efforts to tighten links between their regions. The stronger ties to counter US dominance in the global political arena reflect a key policy goal of da Silva, who proposed the summit during a 2003 trip to the Middle East. The gathering comes at a time when Washington is pressuring Arab states to change their systems of government.
The draft summit declaration also condemns Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and denounces terrorism but asserts the right of people to resist foreign occupation, according to the document approved by foreign ministers on Monday.
In the statement, the two regions demand that Israel, whose biggest ally is the United States, disband settlements in Palestinian areas, including “those in East Jerusalem,” and retreat to its borders before the 1967 Middle East war. “It’s not against Israel. It’s certainly against the occupation by Israel,” Moussa said.
