Meeting of peoples and organizations of Abya Yala creates special commission to promote Runasur. | Photo: VTV

Caracas, April 18 (RHC)-- On a day like today, but in 2008, April 17 was declared as the "Day of the Union of South American Nations," a mechanism for the integration of South American countries, promoted by Commander Hugo Chávez.

This is a reference to the First South American Energy Summit held in Margarita Island, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, on April 17, 2007.   At that presidential meeting, it was decided that the integration initiative called South American Community of Nations would be renamed Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

The purpose of the day is focused on reaffirming the construction of a South American identity in the citizens of all member countries and a favorable conscience to the integration process.

UBASUR was born in 2008 as a progressive project promoted by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and supported by other regional leaders such as Lula, the also deceased Argentinean ex-president Néstor Kirchner, and the then rulers of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, and Bolivia, Evo Morales. 

The purpose of this bloc is to promote re gional integration in the areas of energy, education, health, environment, infrastructure, security and democracy. It was supposed to be a space for seeking integration and strengthening relations among the twelve member states.

The initiative seeks to build, in the midst of diversity, the Union of Nations, as an irreversible historical task, key to the consolidation of the South American peace zone, regional stability, the preservation of democratic values and the promotion of human rights.

However, throughout its existence, Unasur has suffered some setbacks, particularly due to the departure of countries that adopted right-wing neoliberal models such as Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, among others.

This year 2021, it is intended to boost the organization, as mentioned by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza: Unasur is not dead. "We must go to dialogue with the governments, there must be an agenda for the transition"".

Arreaza stressed that currently the "peoples of South America are returning to the path of Unasur" under the ideology of integration in which it is possible to work with actors such as Russia, China, Turkey or Europe.   During his participation in the virtual international forum on this topic at the end of 2020, he added that."UNASUR is an advanced organization, which proposes a response to the real problems of our peoples". 

The First Meeting of Peoples and Organizations of Abya Yala towards the construction of a Plurinational America highlighted last December the importance of relaunching UNASUR and working to develop Runasur, conceived as the "Unasur of the peoples", an instrument of integration and debate to advance on issues of education, communication, financial system and basic services, among other priorities.

Among the conclusions of the meeting is the call for a meeting for the launching and conformation of Runasur to be held from April 24 to 26 next year, for which a commission was formed by representatives of Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela with the participation of indigenous people, professional workers and intellectuals from 12 countries.

"The peoples will have the Runasur to consolidate the liberation of the peoples of South America and all Latin America" said the former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, during his participation in the meeting.

Morales called for the construction of a world in which the unity of social movements, rural and urban workers, united by historical struggles for justice, such as Argentina's legitimate claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and Bolivia's just efforts to have access to the sea, prevails.