Cuban President Reaffirms Latin American and Caribbean Integration

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel reaffirmed his country's commitment to Latin American and Caribbean integration, according to a statement released today commemorating the region's rejection of a contrary proposal, known as the FTAA.

The Cuban leader, speaking at an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Peoples' Summit and the rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), highlighted "the defeat of the imperial plan to swallow, in one bite, the peoples from the Bravo to Patagonia."

Díaz-Canel recalled the event as a feat of unity, a triumph of "Our America," which he said rejected the neoliberal project proposed by the United States for the region.

The Cuban president pointed out that twenty years have passed since that "burial" in Mar del Plata, where the peoples of the Americas laid to rest an imperialist plan disguised as integration that sought to subordinate "our economies, cultures, and lives to transnational big capital."

In this context, Díaz-Canel recalled in the current landscape, "two leaders whose dignified and unifying legacy accompanies us and will accompany us forever: Commanders Fidel Castro Ruz and Hugo Chávez Frías."

He also mentioned international events such as the increasingly alarming threat of a military intervention in Venezuela, the genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, and the attempts to annex the West Bank, despite existing agreements.

Likewise, Díaz-Canel denounced the United States blockade against Cuba, which is intensifying even amid the devastation currently faced by the eastern part of his country following a major hurricane.