By conference participants, Luis Malik and Mark Friedman of the LA Hands Off Cuba Committee
Havana- At the closing session of the V International Conference, “For the Balance of the World,” on Jan. 28, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel repeated the need for international solidarity and the promotion of dialogue to resolve conflicts worldwide.
The solidarity that we have given and submitted as an inalienable value and principle of the Revolution could not be blocked, just as the peoples’ awareness cannot be blocked, Diaz-Canel said in Spanish. “Let us insist on the most difficult task: balancing the world.”
In his closing speech, he also highlighted how the deep faith in the ideals and the truth as a guide allowed Cuba’s national hero, José Julián Martí Pérez, and founder of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, to build the revolution and sustain it.
“We are obliged to build a balanced world where diversity is respected, [is] truly democratic, [is] ecologically sustainable, [is] socially just, and where the sovereignty of nations is affirmed,” Diaz-Canel said. “They both spoke and wrote tirelessly for their contemporaries and ours, for their time and this one. Let us insist, then, on the most difficult task and the one to which they devoted all their energies: to balance the world.”
The president of the island nation noted that special attention needs to be paid to the climate crisis caused by humanity’s irresponsible and ruthless depletion of our planet’s resources — a depletion carried out by large corporations with the suicidal complicity of the ruling elites.
The three-day conference commemorated the 170th anniversary of José Julián Mart Reportback-from-Cuba-Conference-Towards-a-Balance-of-the-World.-2í Pérez’s birth, with more than 1,100 delegates from 86 countries in attendance.
The conference included several hundred workshops, including those regarding the ideas and application of José Martí as well as efforts to end the US blockade of Cuba. There were also youth workshops and labor and climate change presentations from delegates around the world.
Special attendees at the conference include The author of Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology, Frei Betto. The book was a product of an intimate 23-hour dialogue between Fidel Castro and Brazilian liberation theologist Frei Betto, this was a Simon & Schuster bestseller in the 1980s. Here Castro speaks candidly about his views on religion and his education in elite Catholic colleges, offering an insight into the man behind the beard.
One of the Cuban Five and Director of the Institute for Friendship of the Peoples, Fernando Gonzalez Llort.
A delegation from the United States included members of LA Hands Off Cuba, the Cuba and Venezuela solidarity committee that organizes caravans with Puentes De Amor out of Miami, Gail Walker from IFCO/Pastors for Peace, Manolo De Los Santos from People’s Forum and a few academics.
Delegations from across the world reported on the political and economic developments in their country.
The vice president of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, addressed the conference and discussed US sanctions and harassment of Bolivia’s government.
While US sanctions and the listing of Cuba on the US State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism have caused the island nation to suffer tremendously, those who attended the conference stood overwhelmingly in solidarity with Cuba and for normalized relations with the US.
Not only did the workshops reflect the spirit of the conference, but the 10,000-plus youth march reflected the passion with which Cuban youth are willing to defend the Revolution. Speakers included Julio Emilio Morejón Perez, president of the Federation University Students (FEU), former president Raúl Castro Ruz, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic Esteban Lazo Hernandez, President of the National Poder Popular and others.
In the youth workshop, Luis Malik from Los Angeles discussed the opportunities to reach out to and organize young people in anti-police brutality, Palestinian rights, abortion rights, and other social protest movements. He cited the accomplishments of Cuba by comparison.
“This is how we built a diverse, active, and youthful committee in Los Angeles that carries out regular public activities and educational programs,” Malik said. “We shall be returning to Cuba with a delegation of labor leaders, activists, and youth activists for May Day.”
A resolution coming out of the youth workshop, reflecting the sentiment of the convention itself, said in part: “In a global context where the balance of the world sometimes seems like a dream impossible, the young people gathered in this V International Conference commit ourselves to contribute to the realization of this dream from our collectives, work centers, and studies, from our countries and continents. We reaffirm our anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-neoliberalism, our repudiation of all forms of cultural colonization, terrorism, disrespect for Nature, and manipulation of the realities of our countries, carried out by circles of power international companies that seek to obtain more and more profits, generating more and more misery, with the complicity of corporations, governments and the big media mass communication, whose interests are alien to the needs of the class worker and those historically discriminated against; We defend the sovereignty, dignity and the right of self-determination of the peoples, pillars on which all relations between nations must be based…”
The labor and Cuba workshop included Jeff Dladla, representing the Congress of South African Trade Unions, union activists from Barbados, Puerto Rico, the Basque country (part of Spain) and the US.
Amanda Verone, a member of the Department of International Relations of the Basque Union, referred to the struggle of workers in Europe and insisted on caring for the environment, cultural decolonization, the liberation of ethnic groups, non-discrimination against native peoples, and migrants.
As proof of the importance of union struggles in the face of the global crisis, the World Federation of Trade Unions, on behalf of its 105 million members in 133 countries, condemned the hypocrisy of the US, NATO, and the European Union in the face of the murder of Palestinians by Israeli forces, and called for the organization of an International Day of Solidarity with the people of Peru.
“Today we have consensus, historical patience, and the will to build trust, in order to promote the principles of the anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal identity of the trade union organizations and social movements with which we interact; but it is essential to contribute to political education, based on communication; strengthen the world trade union movement in defense of peace, for full political sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples, and contribute to the achievement of unity of action and international solidarity among all those who fight for a better world”, pointed out Ismael Drullet, head of the Department of International Relations of the CTC.
Also speaking was this reporter and veteran trade unionist from the US, Mark Friedman. He is also an organizer for the upcoming “LA Labor and Youth” delegation to Cuba from April 23 to May 3.
“Developments in the US labor movement today, not seen in decades, give us an opportunity to bring the issue of Cuba into the labor and youth movement and other organizations,” Friedman said. “It is an opportunity that we cannot miss. I believe that these same opportunities exist in virtually every country in the world and if we do not respond to these opportunities we shall fail in our defense of Cuba.”
Summary comments by a member of the Political Bureau and general secretary of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento pointed out that these debates seek to gather the best experiences in current workers’ struggles and promote alternatives in defense of a path towards socialism. “We all focus on the urgent need to close ranks, promote unity, cohesive action, and respect for differences, in defense of peace, sovereignty, development, and social justice,” he added.