PREVIEW: Iberian American Summit to focus on the poor

Nov 6, 2007, 4:00 GMT

Santiago - The leaders of Latin American countries will meet their peers from Spain and Portugal and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday and Friday in Santiago for an Iberian American Summit which will officially focus on social cohesiveness.

However, as is often the case with these annual gatherings, few concrete proposals or goals will be on the table to overcome the poverty which affects some 200 million Latin Americans. The 17th Iberian American Summit is likely to remain a declaration of good intentions.

The host, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet - with low popularity ratings at home - will do her best to show some results.

'Poverty is the worst threat for the region,' Bachelet said.

She has declined to turn the summit into an occasion to distribute leadership across the region or question the political changes that are currently taking place in Venezuela, Ecuador or Bolivia.

The basic idea, sketched in preparatory meetings on health, education and gender, is to establish mechanisms for cooperation to support compliance with the Millenium Development Goals drafted by the United Nations.

Indeed, any agreement in Santiago will doubtless be made easier by the ideological proximity between most Latin American leaders, who are on the left of the political spectrum, and by the economic boom of a region which in the past five years has shown its best results in a quarter-century.

However, all eyes will once again be on the unofficial agenda of the summit. Energy, the environment and border disputes are likely to mark bilateral discussions.

Bolivia's access to the sea through Chilean territory, the possibility of an agreement - mediated by the king of Spain - between Argentina and Uruguay on the lonstanding dispute over installation of a paper mill on the Uruguayan bank of a common river, and the renewed ties between Mexico and Venezuela will be the 'real' topics at stake.

Relations with Spain and Portugal - the main gates of access to the European Union for Latin American nations - will also be debated.

Barring last-minute changes, there will be few notable absences. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner and his wife, president-elect Cristina Fernandez, will be in Santiago this week.

So will Spain's King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mexico's Felipe Calderon, however, had to cancel at the last minute due to the humanitarian crisis from flooding along Mexico's southern Gulf coast that has left 800,000 people homeless and some without food.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, who is still recovering from surgery more than a year ago, is not set to attend, and neither is acting Cuban leader Raul Castro. Fidel Castro 'temporarily' gave up power to his brother Raul, but he has also missed the previous six Iberian American summits.

The Cuban delegation will be headed by Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, and diplomatic sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the summit is once again expected to condemn in its final declaration the US embargo on the communist island.

Iberian American summits have been held annually since 1991 to bring together Latin American nations, Spain and Portugal. Last year's gathering took place in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.

As has been the case in recent years, there will be a parallel Peoples' Summit in Santiago, likely to be attended by Chavez, Morales and Correa. However, Chilean authorities have contained the alternative gathering within a university campus, reducing the chances for street rallies.