The acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, speaks at the "Homeland is America" International Colloquium, commemorating 200 years of the Congress of Panama, Caracas, June 22, 2026. Photo: X/@mippci_ven.
The acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, emphasized that Latin America “is not willing to surrender” as it defends its independence.
“We have the responsibility, the duty, to make it understood, with respect, that Latin America is in rebellion, that Latin America is defending a path of independence and freedom and is not willing to surrender. I believe in this path and I aspire for this Venezuela, a new Venezuela, a Venezuela with a different politics, a different concept, a different understanding of politics to be part of this path for freedom, unity, and integration, as envisioned by our great liberators, Bolívar, Sucre, Francisco de Miranda,” Rodríguez said on Monday, June 22, at the closing event of the “Homeland is America” International Colloquium, held in Caracas, to commemorate 200 years of the Congress of Panama, a diplomatic assembly convened and led by the Father of the Nation Simón Bolívar during June 22-July 15, 1826.
At the event, in which the people’s organizations, historians, and Venezuelan personalities participated, as well as representatives from 12 countries, Rodríguez emphasized that this Latin America must become a reality, and that the “spaces of diplomatic integration should matter, as Bolívar believed.”
She added that in Bolívar’s time, “the spaces of integration were filled with those who did not see, or rather, saw danger in that project.”
In this regard, she emphasized, “Please understand that a united Latin America is not a threat; a united Latin America is hope for this continent and for humanity…This Bolivarian land extends its hand to join this path, which is hope for the peoples of the world.”
She added that the peoples of Latin America “know what it is to have governments that turn their backs on them; they know what it is to have governments that ignore their own history, and we are seeing this in our region.” In this situation, she said that she believes that two centuries after the Panama Congress, “it is time to turn what was one of the most important challenges proposed by our Liberator at the time into the definitive guide that will lead the steps of all our peoples in our region.”
“It is the only way that we can guarantee economic, political, cultural, and social integration, starting from the right to self-determination,” she added
She said that her message, as acting president of Venezuela, to the countries of the region is “to find our own path in the continent, in the hemisphere, where we live with a nuclear power, the United States, and how we, through relationships of respect, through a historical morality that sustains us, because there is quite a body of history that supports us in ethics and morality; how, from that position, we can also convey the truth of our peoples, which are not only material riches but a deep identity that has been forged in the history of independence and freedom of our peoples.”
Hugo Chávez and Venezuela’s Historical Role in Regional Integration
On the occasion of the bicentennary, the foreign affairs minister of Venezuela, Yván Gil, on behalf of the government of the country, extended “a fraternal greeting to the peoples and governments of the region on the occasion of the Day of Latin American and Caribbean Unity.”
“This date commemorates the historic Congress of Panama, held in 1826, convened by the Liberator Simón Bolívar to reaffirm the importance of strengthening the independence and political and territorial sovereignty of the newly liberated States and to consolidate the unity of the peoples into a strong and sovereign bloc, aimed at providing the greatest possible sum of happiness, social justice, and self-determination to our nations in the face of the threats of US domination, which were already looming at that time,” he wrote on social media.
“While the Latin American that unity we envision today may not be identical to that conceived by Bolívar, the political integration project that he bequeathed us remains relevant and necessary,” he added.
(Diario VEA) by Yuleidys Hernández Toledo, with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SH
