Venezuela's Maduro pledges continued alliance with Cuba

Venezuela's Maduro pledges continued alliance with Cuba

Reuters – 04/28/2013



HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba and Venezuela signed cooperation accords on

Saturday for 51 projects as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, on his

first trip to the island since his election, pledged to maintain the

close alliance forged by his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez.



Maduro said they would jointly spend $2 billion this year on "social

development," but it was not clear if he was discussing the 51 projects,

few details of which were disclosed, or other works.



His visit appeared aimed in part at allaying Cuban worries about

post-Chavez relations with the oil-rich South American nation that is

Cuba's biggest ally and benefactor.



Venezuelan oil and money help keep the communist-ruled island's troubled

economy afloat and the governments have about 30 joint ventures, most of

them in Venezuela.



"We have come to Havana, Cuba, to say to the people of Venezuela, the

people of Cuba, all the people of Latin America ... are going to

continue working together, we came to ratify a strategic, historic

alliance that transcends time, that is more a brotherhood than an

alliance," Maduro said at a signing ceremony in Havana's main convention

center.



Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, told reporters he met with

former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 86, for five hours on Saturday,

"remembering Comandante Chavez, remembering that those two built this

relationship."



Maduro narrowly won an April 14 election to replace Chavez, who died on

March 5 after a long battle with cancer.



He ran basically as a Chavez surrogate who would continue his socialist

policies both at home and abroad, including a close relationship with

Cuba and Castro, whom Chavez considered his political mentor.



But his election opponent, Henrique Capriles, scored political points by

criticizing the alliance with Cuba, which combined with serious economic

problems facing Venezuela, made Cubans worry they could lose their

economic lifeline.



Cuba receives an estimated 110,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan oil in

exchange for money and the services of some 44,000 Cubans, most of them

medical personnel, in Venezuela.



In 2000, Cuba and Venezuela created an intergovernmental commission that

holds annual meetings to develop joint projects in a wide range of

areas, among them healthcare, education, culture and economics.



Cuban President Raul Castro, who spoke only briefly at the ceremony,

said that along with the 51 projects, they had agreed on memorandum of

understanding for the development and adoption of a "bilateral economic

agenda" for the next five years.



(Reporting By Jeff Franks and Rosa Tania Valdes; Editing by Peter Cooney)



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