This was endorsed in the final statement by the bloc at the 4th extraordinary meeting of its Political Council, held in Caracas in August, this year.

The text ratified the fundamental principles of the organization, especially solidarity, genuine cooperation, social justice and economic complementariness.

It also proposed re-launching productive socioeconomic projects to strengthen the region and beating the logic of the capitalist system.

In the economic aspect, it proposed the construction and development of a complementary economic area among ALBA-TCP, the Caribbean Community and the energy-cooperation initiative Petrocaribe.

Such a space will be an important center of economic, trade, productive and friendly collaboration support among the regional countries.

Energy and social agreements on a smaller scale were signed as well, all financed by Petrocaribe and the ALBA Bank.

Those agreements include construction in Antigua and Barbuda of an eolian-energy plant, the building of a medical center and improvement of the agricultural productive sectors in Dominica, installation of solar panels in public schools and construction of houses in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Besides, they planned erecting and renovating schools in Grenada, sports centers in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and houses in Saint Lucia for homeless people.

While the ALBA-TCP is investing in those projects, the capitalist power circles are only defending destabilization in Latin America and the Caribbean and plundering of their resources, warned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was heading the closing ceremony of the meeting.

BATTLE FOR REGIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

In the meeting in Caracas, the representatives from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cuba, Venezuela (ALBA-TCP members) agreed to boost regional sovereignty as a bloc.

In that reference, the final statement was a denunciation of imperialist plans designed to force, by using non-conventional war strategies, the outgo of progressive governments in the region that were elected democratically by the people.

ALBA-TCP foreign ministers and representatives that went to the meeting in the Venezuelan capital promised to present a plan to the bloc's Presidential Council to counteract charges against Ecuador and El Salvador, the governments of which are facing destabilizing actions led by the internal opposition.

They announced that they would create accompanying commissions composed of foreign ministers, seek support from other Latin American alliances and would hold periodically meetings of solidarity with the attacked countries.

According to President Maduro, there is a currently-ongoing plot to eliminate the revolutionary governments, because the powers behind those conspiracies know that they would not fall through elections.

Besides the cases of Ecuador and El Salvador, the president referred to similar situations in Brazil and Argentina, and passed on his solidarity and support to the authorities in those countries.

Referring to his country, Maduro denounced attacks against the Venezuelan stability, plotted by the US Southern Command, and asserted that he had proof of how that entity placed officials at Washington's embassy in Caracas to lead subversive plans.

In this regard, he announced that a commission would be shaped up with the United States to present all the evidence of that maneuvers and other encouragements to attacks as economic war and financing paramilitary groups, both supported by the internal opposition.

To the ALBA-TCP, it is essential to strengthen regional unity, as honoring the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as peace zone, made in Havana in 2014 by the heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

The diplomats and ministers in the meeting in the Venezuelan capital also ratified the bloc's commitment to the principles of the international law, respect to sovereignty, peaceful solution to conflicts, non-intervention in internal affairs of other nations and to refraining from using force or threatening to use it.

In that regard, they condemned the external factors that are trying to worsen the current territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, breaking unity in the region and frustrating mechanisms as Petrocaribe and CELAC.

ALBA-TCP supports diplomatic negotiations between Caracas and Georgetown to favor a peaceful solution to the conflict.

All attempts to put their interests before ours or divide us will be inevitably doomed to failure, said the statements made in the Venezuelan capital.

Maduro asserted that there was still much to do in Latin America and the Caribbean to achieve definitive sovereignty. A decade of ALBA-TCP is only a beginning, compared to five centuries of colonial and neocolonial exploitation suffered by our people, he said.

However, he stated that the mentioned integration authority was a true driving force of the new world, which has emerged with deep pro-independence feelings.

The president insisted that the regional countries lacked forces if they are isolated, but together, they have the capacity of becoming a power and face today's re-colonization plans.

With the 4th meeting of its Political Council, the ALBA-TCP reaffirmed the path to common development.

For the moment, the next analysis of the situation in the member countries and the progress in the processes of integration will be held in the last quarter of this year in the Cuban capital, where the heads of State and Government of the alliance will go, according to the statement of Caracas.

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