By Roger Harris and Alicia Jrapko on February 3, 2019
Overwhelming support for Venezuela at World Balance Conference. Photo: Bill Hackwell
Close to 700 conferees from 65 countries convened in Havana, Cuba from January 28-31, for peace and “world balance.” This, the fourth such conference, was dedicated to honoring the ideals of Cuban national hero José Martí who died in 1895 at the age of 42 fighting for independence from colonial Spain.
The event was organized by the José Martí Project of International Solidarity which is sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). During the event, tribute was paid to two great Cubans who have passed in the recent period: Fidel Castro and Armando Hart.
Well known personalities from all over the world spoke during the four days including the Spanish political scientist and analyst Ignacio Ramonet, the outstanding Brazilian intellectual Frei Betto, Adán Chávez Frias, vice-president of International Affairs of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Venezuelan Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas, historian of Havana Eusebio Leal, and a representative from the Pontifical Academy of the Vatican. Interventions were also made by Argentina intellectuals Stella Caloni and Atilio Borón. Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che, spoke during the panel on solidarity along with Puerto Rican fighter for independence Oscar López Rivera.
The wide-ranging conference addressed the “most pressing issues that have an impact on humanity” from global warming, to feminism, to sustainability. An overarching theme of the conference was the urgency of international solidarity with the democratically elected President of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro Moro who is under a ferocious attack by the United States. Another main issue present at the conference was the struggle to free former President of Brasil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unjustly imprisoned without a single proof of evidence against him.
The first plenary session was attended by newly elected Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, José Ramón Balaguer and Víctor Gaute, members of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso, and Director of the Martiano Program Office Abel Prieto. The opening words were by Héctor Hernández Pardo, deputy director of the Martiano Program Office and coordinator of the event.
Yuri Afonin of the Russian Federation Communist Party observed that the open colonialism of Martí’s time has been replaced by today’s neo-colonialism. With the collapse of the U.S.SR/Eastern Europe, imperialism was given a green light. The planet has gone back to the 19th century as capitalism tries to impose its neoliberal hegemony.
Yeidckol Polevnsky, President and General Secretary of the of the newly triumphant National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) Party in Mexico, advocated strongly for respecting sovereignty and self-determination among nations, denouncing U.S. interference in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Likewise, the representative of the ruling Chinese Communist Party called for non-interference. Venezuelan Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas warned: “The U.S. has unleashed a culture of war.”
During the conference Adán Chávez Frias made a call to unite with conscience against the interests of capitalism and highlighted the importance of the instruments created by the Venezuelan government, which he indicated have allowed the organization of popular power and the effective participation of the people in the design and execution of public policies. He also stressed that Latin America and the Caribbean “will continue to be the torch that illuminates the rest of the world.”
Brazilian Frei Betto talked about the achievements in Latin America over the last 60 years despite the military dictatorships and pointed to Cuba as a light towards changing from capitalist governments.
Rene González of the Cuban 5 and Vice President of the Martiano Program Office observed that many internationals, some of whom were at the conference, fought with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua against the U.S.-backed dictator and many more would now do the same if Venezuela must defend itself. Fellow Cuban 5 hero Fernando González who is the current President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) summed up the conference: “we must unite to defend these causes because the enemy is the same…Yanqui imperialism.”
At the closing of the conference, Eusebio Leal, the renowned historian of Havana, said that José Martí is a voice that demands balance. “Martí summons us to fight for social justice, for the equality, for the full and absolute dignity of women.” Leal pointed out that the Apostle also calls for rising up against poverty and the ever more disproportionate growth of wealth.
The final words at the closing of the conference were from Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla who said, “We inhabit an unequal planet like never before, we live in a world of enormous and growing imbalances, which cause great threats to international peace and security, to justice and to the dignity of human beings.” He stressed that U.S. imperialism is clinging to a unipolar order, historically discarded and unsustainable, in the face of the tendency towards multilateralism.
Rodríguez continued that “climate change, that Fidel began writing about in 1992, is advancing inexorably, as a result of the structural paralysis produced by capitalist development in its imperialist phase, and its model of irrational and unsustainable consumption.” He pointed out that “international law is continuously being assaulted by a disregard to obligations acquired in international treaties.” According to the foreign minister, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the greatest inequality with a dependence on the United States where 80% of the electronic information passes through and is managed.
Rodríguez concluded with a call for mobilization and political action in the communication struggle, the search for technological support in the battle of ideas. His concern was that there had to be a defense of memory and identity through revolutionary and popular action, both real and virtual, in the streets and networks. The articulation of the popular, social, and indigenous movements, which will reflect a left political and social paradigm for the good of all, is essential and to do that we must be willing to fight arm and arm.
The international conference closed, dedicated to an inclusive multi-polar world where, in the words of José Martí, patria es humanidad (homeland is humanity).
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano US edition