Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Argentinean former soccer star Diego Maradona and Bolivian candidate for president Evo Morales observed a one-minute silence for the death of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA.)

The term could not be completed due to the calls and cheering of about 50,000 participants in the closing session of the Third Peoples' Summit, also called the "Counter Summit."

"We have come here for many things. Every one of us brought a burying scoop, because here, in Mar del Plata, the FTAA tomb is located. FTAA, go to hell!" Chávez said during the ceremony in a local sports stadium.
  
The crowd answered by singing "one-minute silence as the FTAA is dead."

"When I have the floor over there in the other summit (the Summit of the Americas,) perhaps I will be much inspired by the findings of the Third Peoples' Summit and deliver a copy to the presidents for them to be aware of our people's resolutions," the ruler, in a red shirt and blue suit, said from a scaffold decorated with a huge banner of Ernesto Ché Guevara and the Venezuelan flag, AP reported.