Infolatam/Efe, 06/01/2010
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised today to CEPAL to work for Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa when he steps down from power, on January 1st, and help these regions “”write their own destinies.” “Latin America and Africa should transform themselves into continents of dignity and respect,” affirmed Lula in the closing of the 33rd period of sessions of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), which concluded today in Brasília after three days of debates.
The Brazilian leader compared the manner in which the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean reacted to both the crisis that broke out in 2008 in the United States and the one that is currently befalling the euro zone and reassured that the small impact was because the region had “begun to write their own destiny without the help of anyone.”
Lula condemned the Washington Consensus, which during the 1990s proposed the reduction of the state’s role in the economy in favor of the market, and in contrast supported CEPAL’s proposal to strengthen Latin American states.
The Brazilian president blamed a good part of the region’s underdevelopment on the “authoritarianisms” that submerged Latin American during the twentieth century, on the military regimes that ruled in many of the countries, but also on “the subordination of many heads of state, that thought that everything that came from Europe and the United States was good.”
Read more… (in Spanish)
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