South American and Arab leaders criticized the world?s rich countries and Israel and gave support to the Palestinians on Tuesday at a summit. ?This is a brave meeting with ambitious objectives. We want to take concrete steps in the fight for development and social justice,? Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the opening ceremony, where princes and emirs in Arab robes and headgear gathered in a convention center in Brazil?s futuristic capital.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, on his first overseas trip since Iraq held elections, urged the participants to help his country?s reconstruction with investment and recognition. Both sides, however, clearly had different priorities. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said that while he supported trade between developing nations it was in the political world that true cooperation would be gained. ?We must call upon the entire international community to find a final resolution (to the Palestinian issue), a solution that is definitive, so that everyone will do their best so that Israel will submit itself to international law and accept a negotiated peace?, Bouteflika said to cheers from delegates. Lula wants summit participants to identify business opportunities that will open up new relationships between poorer regions long dominated by the world?s most powerful economies.

He used the occasion to reiterate his criticism of the world trade order and subsidies by the rich countries. ?Our great challenge is to design a new international trade and economic geography,? said Lula, who proposed this summit after a Middle East tour in 2003 as part of a drive by Brazil, the world?s fourth-largest democracy, to establish itself as a diplomatic force and a voice for the developing world. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized the chance to rail against the United States and ?the capitalist voracity.?

?Some call us countries on the path to development, others undeveloped. I choose to say developed, exploited, dominated,? he said in his address. In a concrete achievement, the Mercosur trade bloc linking Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay signed an accord to begin talks on a free trade pact with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. Brazil has said it intends to double its trade with the Arab world to $15 billion over the next three years.

<B>Politics the overriding theme</B>

But the Arabs were focused on securing political support for the Palestinians and censure of Israel. The final summit declaration will condemn terrorism but will also support the rights of people to resist occupation. Washington and the Israelis have expressed concern, believing this could offer support to anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hizbollah, whom they deem terrorists. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thanked South American countries for ?always having been on the just side of the Palestinian question.? He asked all participants to work to give a new push to the peace process. In his speech, Talabani, a Kurd, said Iraq was a rich and strong country which would lift itself up quickly.

?We came to this summit asking also for a condemnation of terrorism and these savage terrorist acts that are committed against the Iraqi people,? he said. ?We are suffering from some problems but we are decided and we are sure of victory.? ?We hope that this summit helps our people in their just fight,? he said. A huge security operation has been mounted in Brasilia, causing traffic chaos in this city, built from scratch in the middle of the savanna in the late 1950s.

More than 9,000 troops and police have been deployed to guard against any terrorist attack. Light tanks were positioned along the roads and the convention center was surrounded by barbed wire with military helicopters flying overhead.

<B>Andrew HAY Guido NEJAMKIS</B>

HERITAGE

<B>Arabs blood flows through Latin American veins</B>

■ At first glance a summit of Arab and South American leaders might seem an unlikely encounter. But Arab immigrants and their descendants have played a prominent role in Latin American life, from presidents such as former Argentine leader Carlos Menem to pop singers like Colombia?s Shakira. And they are a powerful force in business and commerce. The richest man in Latin America, Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, is the son of a Lebanese immigrant. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid tribute to this heritage in his opening speech to the South American-Arab Summit in Brasilia on Tuesday, an unprecedented gathering of leaders from the two regions. ?For Brazil and other countries this meeting has the taste of a recounter for South Americans because of the civilization from which we came, with our Iberian heritage and later through immigration. These values are today a part of our very identity.? The first Arab influences may have come to Latin America with the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors, whose own countries were just emerging from centuries of Arab rule. Recent waves of immigration took place between the world wars and in the 1960s and 1970s, including families fleeing the Lebanese civil war. An estimated 17 million Latin Americans are of Arab descent, of whom six million are Muslim and the rest Christian. Most are from Lebanon, Syria or Palestine.Of those 10 million live in Brazil. Sao Paulo is full of Arab restaurants and many Paulistanos are as familiar with kibe and homus as they are with rice and beans. The Syrian-Lebanese Club is among the poshest in the city. The swank Sheraton Hotel in Sao Paulo, which claims to have a larger Arab population than Beirut, is owned by the Moffarej family and business tycoon Paulo Maluf is a former mayor.?The way Brazilians negotiate has much to do with the first (Arab) immigrants who came here. That is to negotiate a lot and create confidence between client and businessman,? said Antonio Sarkis, president of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. ?Brazil has never been so close to the Arab countries as it is now, and vice versa, and this is the moment to deepen relations. There is a great empathy,? he said.One of Brazil?s brightest literary talents, Milton Hatoum, writes about Lebanese immigrants in the Amazonian city of Manaus in novels such as

?The Brothers? and ?Tale of a Certain Orient. ?Shakira, a sensation from Miami to Buenos Aires, hails from the large Lebanese community on Colombia?s Caribbean coast.Most of the Arabs arrived in Colombia about 100 years ago, many working as itinerant traders. They were known as ?turcos,? because of the Ottoman domination of Arab territories.

<B>Angus MACSWAN</B>