Image via the Communist Party of Cuba
The 23rd International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP) began on Friday, October 20 in Izmir, Turkey. It is being hosted by the Communist Party of Turkey. (TKP).
On the opening day of the meeting Emilio Lozada García, head of the Department of International Relations of the Communist Party of Cuba gave an important speech touching on the international and Latin American situation, the challenges faced by Cuba, the war in Ukraine, the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Palestinians, the examples of countries like China and Vietnam in building socialism and other issues.
Dear Kemal Okuyan, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Türkiye,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I convey to you the most cordial greetings on behalf of the Communist Party of Cuba and the most sincere wishes that this XXIII International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties will be a success in terms of articulation, coordination and effective work of our parties.
A year has passed since the last meeting in Havana and the situation faced by the great majorities that we represent and defend has not improved, but quite the opposite, it is worsening.
The outlook is bleak. The world is facing a multidimensional crisis. The cyclical imbalances in trade and finance, the abusive unequal exchange, the scientific and technological divide, the effects of climate change and the depletion and progressive destruction of natural resources continue to have the same victims.
The unjust and unsustainable international economic order perpetuates conditions of privilege for developed countries and keeps a majority of humanity relegated to conditions of underdevelopment.
Fascism, xenophobia, hate speech, exclusion, violence and wars are the response of the powerful to alleviate this global and multidimensional crisis that capitalist greed has caused.
The United States, with a society mired in a deep crisis, accentuated by the social impact of the pandemic, and with a dangerous rise of xenophobic, racist and fascist ideas, is trying to halt the decline of its global hegemony.
They continue to choose the threat and the adventure of war as instruments. The danger stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Never before has world peace been so threatened.
Today in the Middle East, the escalation of violence by the genocidal Israeli regime against the Palestinian people seems out of control.
We reiterate our firm rejection of the indiscriminate bombardment of the population in Gaza, the destruction of homes, hospitals and civilian infrastructure, as well as the deprivation of water, electricity, fuel and food services to the people of that territory, all of which constitute a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
The impunity with which the Israeli regime operates can only be explained by its full confidence in the support of the United States Government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
We denounce the historical complicity of the United States with the government of Israel, permanently obstructing the action of the United Nations Security Council and undermining peace and stability in the Middle East.
The Communist Party of Cuba reiterates its firm position of support for a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the establishment of two States that will enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign State within the pre-1967 borders; with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In this regard, we ask this International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties to steadily increase solidarity with Palestine until they achieve full self-determination. Palestinian people, we stand with you in these difficult times. Freedom for Palestine now.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Latin American and Caribbean region is going through a moment of important political transformation, which constitutes a clear opportunity to advance in an emancipatory, Latin Americanist and united direction, in the face of the renewed effort of US imperialism, seconded by the Latin American fascist oligarchy, to deepen the Monroe Doctrine, division, dependency and domination.
Cuba is currently facing a complex economic situation, mainly because of the unprecedented tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade that the United States has applied to my country for almost 65 years, and which constitutes the main obstacle to our development.
The previous U.S. government, headed by the fascist Donald Trump, applied 243 measures, many of them executed opportunistically and criminally during the Covid-19 pandemic, to economically asphyxiate Cuba and erase the example that our small country represents for the most just causes of our continent and humanity in general.
The current administration of President Joe Biden, following this same strategy, has kept each of these measures intact.
The inclusion of Cuba in the spurious List of So-called Countries Sponsoring Terrorism, which has an intimidating and dissuasive purpose from a banking and financial point of view, has been particularly cruel and unjust.
In spite of all this, Cuba continues to resist in a creative way, as our first secretary of the Central Committee of our Party, comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, has guided us, betting on development, for which there is a well-defined economic and social strategy.
Our Communist Party has defined as priorities since its 8th Congress, the economic battle, the struggle for peace and unity and ideological firmness.
The permanent task of our Party organization remains unity. The Party's mission is to maintain unity and social consensus, all of which has enabled us to confront the imperialist intent to divide and defeat us.
Thanks to the perseverance of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, and to the profound Martí basis of the Revolution, we Cubans have understood with total clarity that unity is our strategic weapon.
As we have done within our country, we aspire to establish a scenario of collective action that consolidates the unity of the international communist and workers' movement and allows us to contribute, in an effective way, to the struggle for a world of peace and social justice, with socialism on the horizon, without losing sight of the historical contexts and particularities of each of our countries.
Let us respect the different forms of organization for the class struggle that each country and each Party have defined, according to their concrete reality.
Let's learn from the experiences flowing from stories of resistance. Let's bet on consensus, articulation and collective construction.
We salute and support the experiences in building socialism of the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam, as well as the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the Workers' Party of Korea.
The successful experiences of the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam in the construction of socialism constitute an important reference for all our workers' and communist organizations.
We support the one-China principle and reiterate our support for the initiatives of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Comrade Xi Jinping, for global development, security and civilization.
We express our strongest solidarity with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and especially with the Bolivarian Revolution, led by the civic-military union headed by President Nicolás Maduro Moros.
We congratulate the brotherly Venezuelan Government for the successful conduct of the dialogue that culminated in the signing of agreements and the partial and limited lifting of coercive measures applied by the Government of the United States.
We reiterate our support for the progressive forces that today lead governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras and Bolivia, which are also facing the attacks of the ruthless fascists of extreme right-wing movements in their countries, with the complicity of the United States.
The Communist Party of Cuba reiterates its firm opposition to the policy of Western sanctions against the Russian Federation and to the expansion of NATO towards the borders of this country, which has been the main cause of the war being waged today on the European continent.
We support the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in its struggle against fascism. This meeting should adopt a resolution on this important issue.
We reject unilateral coercive measures imposed on developing countries, whose peoples suffer the negative impact of such measures. We support the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people. We recognize and demand the right of all peoples in the struggle to defend and build an inclusive, emancipatory and socially just future.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Division and sectarianism will always favour the interests of the forces representing international finance capital, counter-revolution, imperialism and more recently fascism, which is gaining unusual strength in many of our societies, especially in Europe and Latin America.
Without properly articulating the work of the communist forces with the social, revolutionary and popular movements that oppose imperialist domination, we will not be able to face the colossal challenges imposed by capitalism today. We must promote actions that include diverse sectors of society such as workers, students, youth, peasants, women and excluded minorities, increasingly diverse in their composition and heterogeneous in their needs and demands. Only with the effort and work of all, will we be able to achieve real revolutionary transformation and victory.
The founding objectives of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties have been aimed at generating a space for reflection, exchange and collaboration; coordination of positions and joint actions; and international solidarity. To achieve this, we must develop relationships of trust and collaboration, respecting differences and enhancing what unites us.
For this, they can always count on the Communist Party of Cuba.
Thanks very much.