Ernesto Samper highlights advances to replace neoliberal model in Latin America

Bogota, August 18 (RHC)-- Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper highlighted Tuesday that progress is being made in Latin America to replace the neoliberal model with a more solidarity and integrationist one.   During an interview on the program "Notables," broadcast by teleSUR, the former president stressed that the Puebla Group "made the decision to initiate a process of construction of a model that we have called solidarity model of development that aims to replace the failed neoliberal model," he said.

"We cannot continue talking about a neoliberal model without having the audacity to at least lay the foundations to replace it," he said.

In addition, he proposed five fundamental bases to replace the neoliberal model, such as the fight against social inequality, the search for value, sustainability, the need for integration and a new institutional framework.

Regarding the so-called Lima Group and its possible disappearance with the departure of the governments of Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru and Santa Lucia, Samper emphasized that this grouping "never took shape" and described it as an ideological club that focused on common hatreds against Venezuela and progressive authorities.

"It was a group to tune the region to the hegemonic aspirations of the United States to harm Venezuela.  They were the two factors that united it," he stated.

At the same time, he praised the proposal made by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to seek a process of convergence of all sub-regional processes.

"That CELAC be like the big house of all these integration processes.  May we reach the point of having a sort of OAS (Organization of American States), but without the United States."