CARACAS, Monday June 23, 2008 | Update
A meeting the presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and
Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Rafael
Correa, and Hugo Chávez, respectively, were scheduled
to hold late this month was suspended because of "agenda issues,"
official sources said on Monday.
"It has been impossible to combine the agendas of the presidents
and the meeting was put off," a spokesman for the Brazilian
presidential palace of Planalto told Efe.
Chávez announced the reunion during the summit of the
Union of South American Nations (Unasur) in Brasilia last
month. The meeting was supposed to take place in Manaus, Brazil,
late this month, following President Lula's visit to Venezuela.
Lula is arriving in Venezuela next Thursday to meet with
Chávez.
Next week the four presidents are to meet during a summit
of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) in Tucuman, northeast
Argentina.
10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.