Brazil Touts Summit as Proof of South American Unity and Democracy

  
"The political will exists to inaugurate a new stage in the integration of the subcontinent," writes Brazilian Foreign Minister Luis Felipe Lampreia in an editorial in the Argentine newspaper La Nación. At their first-ever summit meeting in Brasília on August 31-September 1, the South American presidents were scheduled to discuss such themes as democracy, trade integration, infrastructure projects, joint efforts to combat organized crime and drug trafficking, and information technology. Lampreia called the summit "a triumph of democracy"; twenty years ago, when much of South America was under authoritarian rule, the idea of Mercosur-the South American Common Market-would have seemed an impossibility. The return to democratic government has meant that "our peoples no longer share the suspicions and animosities of the regimes to which we were subjected," Lampreia said. "The more profound integration that we are working to build will be a fruit of democratic continuity and consolidation."

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/00/08/27/e05.htm