Speaking on March 30 in Qatar, the day before the two-day summit of South American and Arab countries, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said the meeting represented the "coming together" of two regions that have experienced "centuries of struggle against colonialism".
The summit brought together leaders of the 22 members of the Arab League and 12 South American countries. The first summit was held in Brazil in 2005, at the initiative of the Brazilian government.
Arguing for the need to forge greater anti-imperialist unity, Chavez recalled the powerful Arab nationalist movements during the 20th century.
Denouncing the role of the US in the region, he said: "Who was responsible for the Iraq-Iran war? The US! Who financed and gave birth to Al Qaeda? The US!
"All this to impede the unity of the Arab world, and moreover, to afterwards isolate the Iranian revolution. There is a permanent policy of aggression, of war, of terrorism by the US empire."
Held on the eve of the G20 summit in London, a big focus of the summit was the world economic crisis. The governments of Brazil, Argentina and Saudi Arabia attended both meeting.
"There is a global crisis of capitalism that is shaking the planet", Chavez said as he arrived for the summit. "The US empire and the empire of the dollar is drowning … the time has come of the definitive fall of the Yankee empire."
Chavez said the summit was crucial as part of the construction of a "multi-polar" world.
Venezuela's revolutionary government raised a number of proposals for discussion, as there was no space in the official agenda to vote on them.
These included the creation of the "petro", a new currency that would be backed by the international reserves of oil and gas producing countries. He also re-raised his idea of the creation of an OPEC bank, funded by the international reserves of the OPEC countries. Present at the summit were 12 OPEC member countries, along with major gas-producing countries (such as Brazil, Bolivia, Egypt and Sudan).
Following the summit, Chavez visited Russia and China, both of whom have raised the proposal of a new currency to replace the US dollar.
The nations that make up the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA — Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica and Honduras) have announced their intention of creation an ALBA-wide currency called the sucre.
Chavez also proposed a "grand energy and food alliance" between the two blocs, pointing out that South America has the largest water reserves and is the biggest food producing bloc in the world.
The final summit resolution expressed concern over the economic crisis and its ramifications for the 34 countries, calling for the establishment of an international financial system that prevented financial speculation and the convening of a global summit, within the framework of the United Nations, to debate the crisis and solutions.
The summit resolved to exchange experiences on sustainable energy, and for greater cooperation and information sharing in the energy sector, including exchange of technical expertise, technology transfer and training.
There was also a pledge to increase trade between the two blocs and hold a third summit in Peru in 2011.
The summit expressed its support for an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied Arab territories. It also reaffirmed the need to respect the unity, freedom, sovereignty and independence of Iraq.
Denouncing Israel's actions against the Palestinian people as "one of greatest wrongs that exists in the world today", Chavez said his country was not considering renewing diplomatic relations with Israel — cut in protest of Israel's December-January war on Gaza.
Instead, the Palestinian National Authority will open a diplomatic office in Caracas on April 27, according to a March 24 El Universal article.
"The genocide [of Palestinians] makes us feel indignant and when we are dealing with just causes, no fear will hold us back", Chavez said.
In a March 29 interview with Al Jazeera, Chavez said that "independent of the ideological currents and political slogans, we have to strengthen bloc to bloc relations". He said that not all Latin American governments were left-wing, and "between us there are contradictions".
Two days later he said: "There are some progressives around who I don't understand. I am going to ask Lula later: 'Lula, tell me, what is this progressive thing about'.
"Some of them say they are progressives, but I think they do not contribute in a good manner to South American unity.
"When the president of Chile convokes a meeting in Santiago with the US vice president and the British prime minister, two representatives of the empires, I don't understand anything!
"Maybe I will bump into them and ask them: 'What's that about? Explain it to me' … I think that this puts in danger the union of South America, that is how I would put it, because a revolutionary – and I am one – can not remain silent, but rather has to say the truth."