6-05-06, 9:03 am
The Conference was addressed by, among others, Cuban Ambassador Jorge Rey Jimenez, Venezuelan Charge d'Affaires Manuel Perez Iturbe, PPSC Chairman Reynaldo de Guzman, 'Campaign' Chairman Antonio Paris, and Mr. Pedro P. Baguisa, the General Secretary of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party).
A short primer on the 5 Cuban heroes was issued, and the Conference reiterated the demand for the US administration to free the 5 Cuban heroes. The participants resolved to send letters of solidarity to each of the 5 Cuban heroes in their different places of incarceration in the USA.
The Conference condemned the intensification of the Dubya Bush policies of intimidation and saber-rattling against Cuba and Venezuela, including Bush's support for continued attempts on the lives of President Fidel Castro and President Hugo Chavez. These aggressive policies of Bush vainly seek to overthrow the Cuban and Venezuelan Revolutions, and to snatch away from the Cuban and Venezuelan peoples the social achievements that they are so proud of. The Conference also condemned Bush's continued harboring of terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, the self-confessed mastermind of the mid-air bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner off the coast of Barbados in October 1976 (which massacred 73 innocent passengers and crew members), and called for his immediate extradition to Venezuela where he is facing several charges.
The Conference hailed Cuba's election to the newly-organized Human Rights Council of the United Nations, which will start its work on 19 June 2006, and expressed the hope that this new council will effectively expose and oppose the US violation of human rights in its illegal enclave in Guantanamo, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.
Participants to the Conference were appraised of the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), which was initiated by Cuba and Venezuela. The Conference noted that ALBA is the practical application of the long cherished dream of the generation of Simon Bolivar for the independent socio-economic and political integration of that vast region which shares a common history of colonial domination. ALBA is counter-posed to US imperialist domination, which domination is secured through privatization, deregulation and neo-liberal globalization. ALBA therefore stands for really fair trade (instead of the fantasy of 'free' capitalist trade); for the protection of agriculture as a way of life for people in relationship with nature (instead of its being treated merely as a capitalist venture); for the protection of peoples' livelihoods (instead of allowing ruinous foreign competition) ; for upholding the right of peoples to health care and techno-scientific advancement (instead of remaining hostage to imperialist patents); and for the primacy of social concern (instead of allowing profiteering and speculation as in the present case of oil prices). These are the same social principles with which the participants to the Conference identify themselves.
Finally, the Conference hailed the new progressive currents in Latin America with the electoral defeat of US puppets in several countries ; with the wide attraction for the Bolivarian Alternative initiated by Cuba and Venezuela; and with the general movement to wrest back national sovereignty and resources from US imperialist control, as was recently demonstrated by the nationalization of Bolivian hydrocarbon resources by the progressive government of Evo Morales.
--From a statement authored by the members of the Conference of Solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela.
