Caracas, November 7 (RHC-PL) -- Cuban ambassador in Venezuela, Rogelio Polanco, stressed the need to defend and maintain the integration mechanisms that drive today's progressive governments in Latin America.

In statements to Prensa Latina, Polanco said that reality is possible thanks to the defeat suffered 10 years ago by the mechanism of domination known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), proposed by the United States.

What happened in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on November 5, 2005, was an extraordinary event, and we buried the FTAA and began to consolidate what is now the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), said the diplomat.

Polanco recognized that Latin America and the Caribbean are in a time of emergence of the integration processes, and ALBA has been the forefront of that process.

That the region remembers and celebrates the 10th anniversary of the defeat of the FTAA shows how much conscience has won, and that the struggle of our liberators, embodied in these times by Commanders Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, paid off, he stressed.

The diplomat said that for the next 10 years the priority must be to strengthen the process of unity in political, social and economic aspects, at a time when imperialism is launching a new attack against the progressive processes in Latin America.

ALBA will have to overcome significant challenges to ensure that the onslaught is defeated as it was 10 years ago, we are aware that the challenges are great in the future, but it is essential to move forward, Polanco stressed.