ALBA-TCP must be in the first trench against the demons of interference and interventionism

Granma, July 11, 2024 — 

Remarks by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the 10th Extraordinary Summit of ALBA-TCP, from the Palace of the Revolution, on July 10, 2024, “Year 66 of the Revolution”

Dear brother, President Luis Arce, we share and support your words, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate in this ALBA-TCP Summit;

Dear President Nicolas Maduro;

Dear brother Prime Ministers Ralph Gonsalves, of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Roosevelt Skerrit, of Dominica, and Gaston Browne, of Antigua and Barbuda;

Dear representatives of the nations that make up our Alliance;

Dear Jorge Arreaza, Executive Secretary of ALBA-TCP:

I would like to begin by expressing our deepest solidarity with the sister nations of the Caribbean that have suffered severe damage in recent days as a result of Hurricane Beryl.

The loss of lives and the material damage caused by this hurricane hurt as if they were our own, and here we ratify that they can always count on the modest support of Cuba, where we know very well the scope of these blows of nature against the small island territories and their fragile economies.

In that understanding and in the historical will to contribute what we can, the Cuban collaborators who suffered the hurricane’s onslaught together with the towns where they are working, immediately joined the national efforts to assist those in need from the very beginning of the recovery, because for us it is very clear that no problem affecting the region is alien to us.

Comrades:

When the first news of the irregular movements of some Bolivian military units became known, we immediately rejected those actions and immediately maintained the denunciation and offered support to brother President Lucho Arce.

We cannot allow the return of the infamous coup attitudes and actions that sowed such a painful memory in Our America and that seek to reverse the popular will.

For us it is inadmissible that the legitimately established constitutional order should be violated by force of arms.

The circumstances explained by President Arce, which urgently summon us to this Summit, confirm the validity and the need to defend with force and determination the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace approved ten years ago at the Second Celac Summit in Havana.

At times like these we must multiply solidarity in the face of the political polarization and division of our societies promoted by the adversaries of Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration.

The ultra-right uses this polarization to use manipulation and deceit to attack popularly oriented governments, to hinder their social development policies and the progress achieved as a result of decades of struggle of the peoples.

If they achieve their objectives, periods of calm will not come. Repression will come, persecution of social leaders; atrocious neoliberalism will come, the surrender of natural resources to transnational corporations. New lost decades will come and will accentuate the setback of all the advances in the integration that we owe each other and that is possible if we continue to bet on unity with respect for diversity.

Our peoples know this. This explains the spontaneous mobilization that immediately came to the defense of President Lucho, even at the risk of their lives.

A government of progressive and popular orientation must defend itself in compact unity against the powerful adversaries it generates.

It is up to all of us to promote solidarity and cooperation in the region, in strict compliance with the principle of non-intervention directly or indirectly in the internal affairs of any other State, but supporting, without hesitation, progressive governments when they are attacked by the traditional oligarchies in coordination with external and internal referents under the auspices of imperialism.

It is urgent and necessary to reject the coup methods that are constantly emerging and to denounce the use of modern tools of manipulation that try to stop, frustrate and abort the progressive political processes in our America.

We see it happening again and again in sister Venezuela, where they are trying to generate violence once again, now in the context of a new electoral process.

We confirm it in the constant U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, where we still remember and hurt the terrible events of 2018.

Only the unity of our peoples, of the social organizations and their referents will allow us to successfully confront the plans of imperialism and its allies against the sovereignty and independence of our nations.

ALBA-TCP, our Alliance, must be and will continue to be in the first trench of that battle against the demons of interference, interventionism, neocolonialism, the Monroist spirit that, 200 years after its formulation, continues to mark the gaze and actions of the empire towards Our America.

Always onward to victory!

Thank you very much.