Latin American and Caribbean Leaders Reaffirm Commitment to Regional Integration

CELAC member countries signed the Buenos Aires declaration to make Latin America and the Caribbean a community of sovereign nations

On January 24, Latin American and Caribbean leaders reaffirmed their commitment to advance in regional integration and unity at the 7th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The summit was held in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

During the summit, the leaders discussed common issues and how to overcome them through joint regional strategies such as consolidation of peace and democracy in the region, reduction of hunger and poverty, improvement of public health and education systems, advancement of sustainable development in the face of climate change, strengthening of human rights, among others.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández, who held the pro tempore presidency of the regional bloc and inaugurated the summit, called for strengthening “institutionality and democracy in the face of a recalcitrant and fascist right.”

Fernández also called for the unity of CELAC to raise its voice against the criminal and inhumane US blockades on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. “The blockades are a very perverse method of sanctioning, not the governments, but the peoples; we cannot continue allowing it. Cuba has been under a blockade for six decades and Nivaragua and Venezuela suffer the same,” he said.

He urged the representatives of the nations present to deepen commercial and political relations to make integration a reality.

Bolivian President Luis Arce called for strengthening of the multilateral system to save the earth. “Today we are facing a multiple and systematic capitalist crisis that increasingly puts the lives of humanity and our Mother Earth at risk, a food, water, energy, climate, health, economic, commercial and social crisis,” Arce said in his address. “CELAC must return to the principles of multilateralism, but not to preserve the unfair international order that overwhelms States and peoples, but rather to move towards a better world,” he added.

Arce also called for CELAC to be a tool for the construction of an emancipatory integration and should serve as a way to open a relationship with the BRICS nations. “CELAC should be the space and the tool for the construction of a new type of emancipatory, multidimensional and non-subordinate integration between our states and peoples. CELAC should begin to open a relationship with the countries that make up the BRICS so that Latin America and the Caribbean becomes an active part of the construction of a multipolar world,” he said.

Arce also expressed his concern over the political and social situation in the neighboring country Peru. He said that Bolivia is respectful, like all CELAC States, of “International Law and non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” but added that “we cannot simply ignore a situation such as the serious political and social crisis that our brotherly people are experiencing.” Arce urged that the institutions of the Peruvian State work together with its people to take the path of understanding to recover social and political peace in the country.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also highlighted the importance of the integration of the region for a “peaceful world order,” “strengthening of multilateralism” and “construction of multipolarity.”

Lula, in his address, said that “the world is experiencing a moment of multiple crises: pandemic, climate change, natural disasters, geopolitical tensions, pressures on food and energy security, threats to representative democracy.” He said that “these challenges, as we know, are global in nature and require collective responses,” thus adding that “we do not want to import particular rivalries and problems into the region. On the contrary, we want to be part of the solutions to the challenges that belong to everyone.”

In this regard, he called on the countries in the region to lead projects for the preservation of the Amazon. “The cooperation that comes from outside our region is most welcome, but it is the countries that are part of these biomes that must lead, in a sovereign way, the initiatives to take care of the Amazon. Therefore, it is critical that we value our Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization – ACTO,” said Lula.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel welcomed Brazil and Lula’s return to the organization, reaffirming his support and solidarity in the face of the violent and anti-democratic acts that took place on January 8. In this regard, he rejected the interventionist policy of the United States and what he called its instrument, the Organization of American States (OAS), in the region.

Díaz-Canel criticized that the United States “continues the effort to divide us, stigmatize us and subordinate us to their interests, almost 200 years after the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine.” Nevertheless, he highlighted, “our stubborn reality will always be stronger than any attempt to divide us, because we share challenges derived from an unjust, plundering and undemocratic international order,” recalling that the region is “still the most unequal region.”

He added that the Cuban government “does not recognize, nor will recognize any authority to the OAS, which is the organization that is at the service of the United States. It supported and still supports military interventions, coups d’états and interference in Latin America and the Caribbean against popular and legitimate governments. The OAS is the organization that did nothing against the murders, torture, forced disappearances, and persecution of social, progressive, and left-wing leaders in the region, who will remain forever in our memory.”

Likewise, Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, who joined the summit through video conferencing mode, called on the member countries to join forces against the US interventionism. “It is imperative that we raise a single voice, and Latin America and the Caribbean tell the United States of North America no more coup, enough sanctions against free and sovereign countries,” said Maduro. He said that there are several political steps to be taken to make Latin America and the Caribbean as an independent territory and called to “join forces and efforts to reject all kinds of interventionism by forces or powers out of our region.”