CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba
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 Ibero-America Demands Real Justice for Posada Carriles Ibero America Reasserts Position against US Blockade to Cuba Address by Carlos Lage Dávila, Vicepresident of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba Migration Tops Ibero-America Agenda Actions over Talk, Ibero-American Summit Cuban Vice President at Ibero-American Summit Latin America Rejects US Blockade of Cuba Evo Morales to Ibero American Summit Leaders from 17 Countries to Ibero-American Summit Hot Table at Ibero-American Summit Ibero-American Youth Conference Rejects US Blockade against Cuba |
16TH IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT | |||
Ibero-America Demands Real Justice for Posada Carriles CUBA, November 6, 2006 .- Ibero-America has joined a world-unified voice to demand trial or extradition from the United States of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for the explosion in mid air of a Cuban airplane in October 1976 that killed 73 people. At the end of its 16th Summit on Sunday, the 22 Ibero-American countries, met at this capital s Radisson Hotel, and inked a resolution aimed at fighting terrorism in all expressions, with strict adherence to international law. Posada Carriles has been detained since May 2005 at a jail in El Paso, Texas, where a legal decision of parole is expected to acquit him from charges of "illegal immigration."
Ibero America Reasserts Position against US Blockade to Cuba URUGUAY, November 5 , 2006 .- The 16th Ibero American Summit kept a firm position against the US blockade on Cuba and adopted a categorical statement against this inhuman economic, commercial and financial blockade. Washington was seated on the dock, when it was pointed at four times, with the regional community demanding an end to the blockade against the Caribbean island, said the Final Declaration of the event. The document condemning that policy is entitled "Need to Put an End to the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade by the US Government againts Cuba" including the Helms-Burton Act. Only a few days before of a new vote at the UN General Assembly on this topic, Heads of State and Government reiterated their opposition to the blockade. Ibero America rejected the implementation of laws and measures against international law, asked Washington to lift the blockade to Cuba and comply with the regulations of 14 resolutions passed at the UN General Assembly. The US blockade has cost the Cuban government an estimate of 86 billion dollars. Washington also received strong criticism in other topics discussed in Montevideo, especially regarding the border wall in the Mexico-US common border, and for giving shelter to Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in its own territory. This summit adopted a Final Declaration, the Commitment Act of Montevideo, and nine special statements. (Cubaminrex-PL) ADDRESS BY CARLOS LAGE DÁVILA, VICEPRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE 16TH IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT Excellencies, Emigration is a right that must be respected. It is unfair and cruel to be forced to emigrate and leave homeland and family behind in order to provide food, healthcare and education to your children. Sending remittances to family back home is a noble act which should be facilitated but it is humiliating for a country to have to depend on this money. The fact that rich countries are adopting ever more restrictive, abusive and xenophobic measures on emigration is morally unacceptable. The wall on the Mexican border and the immigrant hunts that take place there are proof, if any were needed, of the contempt that the powerful feel towards all those who are not as powerful, even if these governments are their allies. Alongside this form of emigration is another which is just as shocking. Doctors, computer programmers, teachers, nurses and other professionals and technicians are encouraged to migrate to rich countries, and are offered wages and conditions unavailable to them in our countries. For them there are no walls or forced returns, on the contrary, there are plans and programs in place to lure them. Around 240,000 Latin American university graduates migrated last year. Training these professionals cost no less than 5 billion dollars. We should be paid compensation and I propose that we make this demand. These émigrés, whose rights we justly defend, are a consequence of the plundering, exploitation and unequal distribution of wealth. Nothing will stop this migration as long as there is underdevelopment and poverty, as long as the current neoliberal economic policies are imposed on the countries of the South, and as long as the current international economic order remains unchanged. I want to make something perfectly clear. In most underdeveloped countries there is no political will or economic or human interest to change this situation. The opulent and spendthrift North uses immigrants while discriminating against them. The South is providing raw material to the North, while serving as a kind of warehouse from where they get all their resources, from mineral supplies to human talent. Just one example that confirms this: the Millennium aims and goals, which represent nothing more than a modest palliative for the problems currently endured by underdeveloped countries, will not be fulfilled. The developed world did not have any intention of providing the minimum financial aid asked of them and billions of people continue to live without access to food, healthcare or education. Spending on arms and wars now exceeds one trillion dollars; another trillion is spent on commercial publicity, which in the case of medication, for example, means that the price is multiplied by up to ten times; the debt still hasn’t been cancelled and the official development assistance is subject to an increasing number of conditions: advisers coming from the North must live in luxury, purchases must be made in donor countries, and less and less cooperation is given to healthcare and education while more and more is given to the struggle against drug trafficking and for good governance and human rights advice. Instead of trying to change the current situation, the United States issues certificates on “good conduct regarding migration”. Good conduct means letting the professionals migrate, restricting the emigration of non-professionals and accepting back those undesirable to them, after these have taken a postgraduate course in lawbreaking on the streets and in the jails of the United States. The United States, which depended and still depends so much on immigrants for their economic development, and the European Union, which has been a great source of emigrants in its time, are now the greatest persecutors of immigrants in the world, and apply the most restrictive policies. The free exchange of commodities that the developed world wants to impose and the free flow of capital that it demands are nothing but a snare if they are not accompanied by the free passage of people. In this regard, and in others, the hypocrisy and double standards of the world in which we live are laid bare. The issue of migration in Cuba deserves a special mention. A Latin American who goes to live in the United States is an immigrant but if Cuban this person is labeled a political exile fleeing the communist regime. A Latin American must wait in his or her country for a permit to migrate to the United States. If this person is an illegal immigrant, they are returned, but if this person is Cuban, once in the United States, they are immediately granted residency and work, and after one year they automatically receive permanent residency, in compliance with the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Bush administration cancelled migration talks, once again limited remittances to a total of $300 every three months and imposed travel restrictions that allow Cuban immigrants to travel to Cuba only once every three years and that to visit only parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren or siblings; that is, to Mr. Bush, a cousin or aunt is not a family member. The United States government offers shelter and impunity in their country to terrorists who have committed murder and hijacked boats and planes in order to migrate; it restricts legal emigration while encouraging illegal emigration in order to use this as propaganda against Cuba, heedless of the fact that countless people have lost their lives in the Florida Straits. This policy, enforced for decades, seeks to eventually promote a massive exodus which can be used to intensify the anti-Cuban campaign and, ultimately, serve as a pretext for military aggression. A program financed by the United States government is aimed at luring Cuban doctors and other healthcare specialists who are rendering important services in various countries, but they are coming up against the iron will of the new generation of professionals trained by the Revolution and our solidarity programs will not be stopped. In hardly two years, Operation Miracle has helped over 450 thousand people from Latin America and the Caribbean to recuperate their vision, and all these services have been provided free of charge. By now, conditions have been created to operate on one million people every year. Even though our country’s own resources would not suffice to provide these services, if imperialism succeeded in its offensive against Cuba’s economic resources, the capacity would be removed to perform eye surgery on one million Latin American and Caribbean people during 2007. Such figure does not include operated Cubans whose number this year is almost 100 thousand. The new concepts applied to the massive and urgent training of physicians, from Latin America and elsewhere in the world, will make it possible to have, in a rather short time, over 10 thousand new doctors annually, who will not practice private medicine but will take healthcare to and preserve the lives of millions of people. Today, cooperation in the field of health enables Cuba, and increasingly Bolivia and Venezuela, to ensure all of its citizens, without exemption, medical care of excellence provided free of charge. At this moment, 2,400,000 Latin Americans from 11 countries are no longer illiterates and thousands of Cuban specialists work as sport instructors. Although blockaded and harassed, Cuba has never surrendered, and the countries of Latin America can always count on Cuba to fight for their rights which, as we know, will not be handed to us on a plate. Thank you very much. Migration Tops Ibero-America Agenda URUGUAY , November 3, 2006.- The foreign ministers at the 16th Ibero-American Summit try to seek consensus on emigration after Spanish refusal to implement international protection rules. The foreign ministers closed-door talks try to reach consensus to save the Montevideo Commitment and present it to their leaders prior to their meeting after Friday night's inauguration. Estimates from the Ibero-American Social Security Organization prove that emigration soared in 2005 to 25 million compared to 21 million in 2000. Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno warned against the US selective migration policy and exposed the Cuban Adjustment Law that fosters illegal, unsafe emigration and human trafficking. Many countries revile US discrimination policy on migration and especially condemn the over six hundred mile wall it plans to build on the border with Mexico. Uruguayan Foreign Ministry sources said the rest of the documents the heads of states will discuss are almost ready. The 16th Ibero-American Summit ends Sunday with the signing of a Political Declaration, the Montevideo Commitment and ten Special Communiqués including one against the US blockade and a second vs. terrorism. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Actions over Talk, Ibero-American Summit In addition to migration and development as main issues, the summit will also defend multilateralism, UN Charter principles, respect of sovereignty and self-determination, and reject any kind of terrorism. The opening of the Montevideo meeting at the Solis Theater will take place during the working session of the foreign ministers. These will deliver to the statesmen projects for documents, among them the Political Declaration and the Montevideo Commitment. Other papers include the rejection to all expressions of terrorism, an end to the US blockade of Cuba and the request of trial for terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for the explosion in mid air of a Cubana airplane with 73 passengers in October 1976. According to the agenda, Ibero-American General Secretary Enrique Iglesias, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Spain's King Juan Carlos de Borbon and Uruguay President Tabare Vazquez are expected to speak in the first official ceremony of the summit. Created a year ago, in the Summit of Salamanca, Spain, the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) must give account of results of work of this supporting mechanism. According to the SEGIB action plan, Ibero-American nations must back initiatives aimed at eliminating starvation and poverty and boosting programs of exchange of debt for education and other social investments. (Cubaminrex- PL)
Cuban Vice President at Ibero-American Summit CUBA, November 3, 2006 .- Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage leads his country’s delegation to the 16th Ibero-American Summit taking place as of Friday in Montevideo, Uruguay, at a level of Heads of State and Government. The Cuban representation is also made up of Deputy Foreign Ministers Abelardo Moreno and Alejandro Gonzalez, and Cuba"s ambassador to Uruguay Marielena Ruiz Capote. According to the approved agenda, the Summit will debate issues like Migrations for a Shared Development. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Latin America Rejects US Blockade of Cuba URUGUAY, November 2 , 2006 .- The Latin American Community upheld firmly its rejection of the US blockade imposed on Cuba Wednesday, with the analysis of a new condemnation of the US just days from crucial votes in the United Nations. The 14th Heads of State and Government Summit this weekend follows a line of principles in accordance with UN Chapter and the opinion of almost the majority of the nations of the world. After the huge triumph of Cuba in the previous regional dates, the 22 head of states, members of the Latin American mechanism add a new critique of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington for almost five decades. "We reaffirm the most vigorous rejection of the measures contrary to the International Law and exhort the US government to put an end to its application," says the document. According to Latin American General Secretary, Uruguayan Enrique Iglesias, opposition to unilateral measures like the blockade has the backing of all the regional community. The Montevideo Summit demands that the US government follow what has been stipulated in the consecutive United Nations General Assembly resolutions, and to put an end to the blockade imposed on Cuba. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Evo Morales to Ibero American Summit BOLIVIA, October 31, 2006.- The Bolivian government confirmed on Tuesday the presence of President Evo Morales at the 16th Ibero American Summit in Uruguay, aimed at fulfilling a full agenda with presidents of the region. Morales will meet with the presidents of Uruguay, Tabare Vasquez; Chile, Michelle Bachelet and Peru, Alan Garcia. The Bolivian leader will travel to Montevideo on Thursday to take part in debates of key topics such as migration, development, democracy, environment, among others. Addressing several massive concentrations in Bolivia, the head of State has sustained that ending differences among economies will help to stop the exodus of people from the region to European countries. In recent meetings with European Union parliament members, the Bolivian government has requested new markets to send products, not people. The 16th Ibero American Summit will also be attended by king Juan Carlos of Spain, the presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Portugal. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Leaders from 17 Countries to Ibero-American Summit URUGUAY, October 30, 2006 .- Almost 80 percent of chiefs of State and Government called to the 16th Ibero American Summit confirmed their presence for Friday, reported the foreign Ministry Monday. Twenty five foreign delegations will arrive for the top level meeting on the 25th, among them 22 Ibero American dignitaries, noted the governmental institution. Those confirmed up to this moment include King Juan Carlos from Spain, the presidents from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Andorra princedom, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Experts, national coordinators and Foreign Relations Ministers will arrive to this capital starting Wednesday. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Hot Table at Ibero-American Summit Montevideo, October 27, 2006 .- The 16th Ibero-American Summit to be held here in November will endorse a Chiefs of State s Declaration and Montevideo Commitment, documents linked to the most burning affairs in today’s world. The Declaration focuses attention on Ibero-America s cultural heritage, the bloc’s institutionalization, democracy, governability, environment, and other topics of high interest. Meanwhile, the Montevideo Commitment will present emigration from diverse perspectives, such as "promoter of development." The leaders are also expected to sign special texts, including the one on Argentina s request for Falkland Islands sovereignty and another containing their rejection of any form of terrorism. The US blockade against Cuba, gender equity, peace, and Colombia’s demilitarization will be analyzed as well. Though the documents are ready to be debated by the foreign ministers of the 22 Ibero-American countries, the national coordinators will formally go through them November 1-2. (Cubaminrex-PL)
Ibero-American Youth Conference Rejects US Blockade against Cuba CUBA, 21 October, 2006.- An Ibero-American conference of ministers and high officials in charge of youth issues ended up in Havana on Friday with a strong rejection of the US blockade against Cuba. The meeting noted that those restrictions also interfere with the island’s ability to reach the Millennium Development Goals, set forth by the United Nations. Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, who heads the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, expressed gratitude for the support given by most delegations to a statement on the US blockade issue. During the voting on the document, the Costa Rican delegation abstained, while that of Nicaragua came out against it. Eugenio Ravinet, the general secretary of the Ibero-American Youth Organization (OIJ), said the organization had been adamant in its pursuit of a stronger commitment with respect to the Millennium Development Goals, at a time when others resorted to excuses not to fulfill them. The final declaration of the 13th Ibero-American Conference of Ministers and High Officials in charge of youth issues called for a youth cooperation and integration plan and for employment policies that benefit the younger segments. The meeting also pushed for joint strategies in the field of migration that centered on respect for human dignity. Other demands raised in the final declaration included recognition for the equal status of women; respect for cultural identities, especially those of the indigenous peoples; legal advice for youths in conflict with the law and their reinsertion into society; and technical assistance so that young people in Ibero-America have greater access to information technology and knowledge. During the closing session of the Havana meeting, an agreement was signed between Haiti’s Ministry of Youth, Sports and Civic Action, the OIJI and the Ibero-American General Secretariat, aimed at integrating that Caribbean country into the organization.
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