HAVANA, Cuba, May 5 (ACN) Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel sent a fraternal and grateful greeting to the delegates to the VII International Seminar on Peace and for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, which concludes this Thursday in Guantánamo.
Angel Arzuaga Reyes, vice chief and coordinator of the International Relations Department of the PCC Central Committee, delivered the message to the delegates from more than 20 countries attending the event, sponsored by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples and the World Peace Council.
The official thanked the participants for their solidarity and ratified Cuba’s unwavering commitment to the struggle for peace, one of the three main tasks approved by the eighth congress of the PCC (held in April 2021) along with the development of the national economy and the battle for ideological firmness.
On the second and last day of the meeting, Carlos Julio Ron Martínez, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela and President of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace in his country, denounced the mercenary industry against the Bolivarian Republic, and the legacy of destruction of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the world.
Ron Martinez emphasized that spaces such as the Seminar should serve to outline concrete actions for the peoples’ rejection of this military bloc.
Francis Bryan Jhonson, African student of the University of Medical Sciences of Guantanamo, also raised his voice and made a call to fight for social equality, solidarity among the peoples of the world, repudiation of the military bases in his continent and commitment to Cuba and its Revolution.
Fidel Escalante Silvestre, representative in Puerto Rico of the Continental Network of Solidarity with Cuba, currently an agricultural and fishing worker, made a forceful intervention.
He said that the Puerto Rican archipelago, one of the oldest colonies in the world, has been under this yoke for more than five centuries, having emerged from a Spanish military colonial regime to be militarily invaded by another military colonial regime, that of the United States of America, which is now in its 124th year.
He narrated his participation recruited by the U.S. Navy in a war scenario, danger zone and hostile fire area from an aircraft carrier during the Desert Storm and Desert Shield operations, a destiny that today hundreds of nationals live in the service of the U.S. Army in its conflicts throughout the planet, in exchange for a salary or an opportunity to get a professional education.
Escalante Silvestre mentioned that Puerto Rico has served the North American nation as cannon fodder for its war incursions, but also as a laboratory for purposes of social management for economic crises, direct experimentation on the population in terms of biological weapons, climate control laboratories, testing of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
He indignantly pointed out that the withdrawal of the Navy from Vieques does not mean that in his country there are less military activities and facilities, since today there are 25 of these registered enclaves, others framed as classified, organizations that provide them with diverse services and in summary there are 898 military entities, 11 of these of the National Guard.
The delegates to the VII International Seminar for Peace and the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases approved the Final Declaration of the event, which will be publicly presented this afternoon in the town of Caimanera, bordering the illegal U.S. naval base in Cuba, the oldest in the world, established since 1903.
