During a panel discussion held March 15,Cuban experts called on all individuals and groups committed to world peace as an urgent human right to unite. As part of the activities, they launched a twitter campaign with the theme “United for Peace: A social media appeal.”
Using the hashtags #ALCZonaDePaz and #TodosSomosVenezuela, the postulates of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace were championed and the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela defended, in the face of U.S. threats of military intervention.
The mass tweet coincided with the 140th anniversary of the Baraguá Protest, a historic event led by the Major General of Cuba’s Liberation Army, Antonio Maceo, who demonstrated the decision of the people to fight for their independence.
During the panel, Professor José Francisco Piedra, a specialist in Caribbean affairs, referred to the neoliberal counteroffensive that the world is suffering today. “Peace is not only the absence of war. It has a much broader and comprehensive meaning, which transcends the solution of conflicts,” he stressed before those gathered at the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). The event was broadcast in real time on the Radio Habana Cuba website and its local radio frequency.
Professor Francisco, a member of the governing board of the University of Havana Caribbean Studies Department, pointed out that peace consists of preventing conflicts, effective political mediation, and developing an attitude of respect, tolerance and harmony among the different components of society.
He explained that Latin America and the Caribbean have two key instruments in this regard: the Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed in 1967, which established a nuclear weapons free zone in the region; and the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace adopted at the 2nd Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), held in Havana in 2014.
Meanwhile, D.Sc. Manuel Carbonell Vidal, vice rector of the Raúl Roa García Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI), warned of the increase of military personnel in the United States government, evidenced by the dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and the appointment in his place of Michael Richard Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and military academy graduate.
Carbonell also referred to the substantial increase of the U.S. military presence and that of other imperialist powers around the world. “France keeps the 9th Regiment stationed in Guyana and the British have a contingent of around 1,500 men in the occupied Malvinas Islands, claimed by Argentina.”
“We must alert the international community, social movements; we must increase our struggle and exert pressure not only in Latin America, but in the United States itself. We need those who believe in the righteousness of human ideals to fight and protest in different ways, so that the Donald Trump government does not launch an attack against a Caribbean nation as happened in 1983 with Grenada, invaded by the Pentagon under the Ronald Reagan administration,” Carbonell stressed.
A similar opinion was expressed by professor and senior researcher D.Sc. Néstor García Iturbe: “Evidently, the greatest danger to peace in the world is the warmongering of the United States.”
He stressed that countries possessing nuclear weapons never reveal the real data regarding these arms, and noted that modernizing this technology over the next 30 years will cost the world billions of dollars.
“Trump asked Congress to authorize $30 billion USD to modernize the country’s nuclear arsenal over ten years. I believe the conflict with North Korea is a justification for granting more money to the U.S. military-industrial complex,” the prestigious researcher added.
Finally, D.Sc. Luis René Fernández Tabío, professor and senior researcher at the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies, described President Donald Trump as a reactionary, conservative populist.
He noted that U.S. pressure, extortion, and economic sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela are increasing, with the aim of strangling their economies. Trump continues to falsely accuse these two nations of lacking democracy and violating human rights.
Fernández called for the unity of progressive forces in the face of the military threats, hostility, and economic aggression by U.S. imperialism; he asked them to continue to fight against the neoliberal backlash reversing social gains; and confront interference against the sovereignty of progressive governments and attempts to dismantle progress in Latin American and Caribbean integration.
The event served as an opportunity to strengthen the struggle against U.S. destabilization of the region and call for peace, harmony and security.
