Dominica now part of Chavez’s ‘America’s initiative’

Dominica has joined ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), having ratified its February 2007 decision to sign onto the agreement, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has announced.

The announcement was made at a working meeting between Chavez and Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas on Thursday last.

The ALBA is considered Venezuela’s alternative to the US-backed Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA) and is based on cooperation, including economic cooperation and solidarity. It came into being between Venezuela and Cuba on December 14, 2004. Since then Bolivia and Nicaragua have also joined.

According to Venezuela’s government information service, Dominica is the fourth country in the hemisphere and the first Caricom country to sign on to the ALBA agreement.

The Venezuelan information agency said Dominica’s move was a major step for ALBA and being the first English-speaking member of ALBA it is expected to “shine” in the Caricom councils on account of its singular ALBA membership and benefits, “perhaps leading other ambitious Caricom members into ALBA.”

The agency said that since his election to office in 2004, Skerritt has forged a friendly and useful relationship with Cuba’s President Fidel Castro and Chavez, “a relationship which has resulted in Dominica, with a population of 72,000, getting substantial aid from Cuba and Venezuela, opening eyes and the mouths of the English, Spanish, and French speaking Caribbean.”

It added that about 1,000 Cuban and Venezuelan experts in energy, education, health care, agriculture, tourism, housing and other construction are working in Dominica and “have helped to performe – in only three years – an economic miracle on the tiny Caribbean island.

“Evidently, Dominica is grateful for this past help and is also ambitious for more cooperation with Cuba and Venezuela.”

Dominica is set play a major part in the Petrocaribe, “one of the most vibrant international organizations in the hemisphere,” the agency said.

Under the agreement, crude oil from Venezuela will be stored in huge amounts in Dominica for distribution to other Caribbean countries and a US$80,000,000 oil refinery will be constructed on the island with Venezuelan cooperation.

Dominica can pay for 40% of its Petrocaribe oil imports – that is about 900 barrels a day – with its main export, bananas. This is being seen as an incentive for increasing the production of bananas and other crops, something the Cuban agricultural experts on the island are helping with.

The Venezuelan government said it has given Dominica a US$10.1 million grant to expand the Melville Hall Airport; forgiven the island nation’s US$1.5 million debt and assisted in restoring the sight of some 500 blind Dominicans in either Cuba or Venezuela. In education about 2,000 Dominican students enjoy Cuban and Venezuelan scholarships in computer science, medicine, engineering, sports, physics, math, and agriculture, it added.