People from more than 20 countries gathered in Foz do Iguaçu for the Conference on the Integration of Latin American and Caribbean Peoples.
On February 23, the organizations participating in the Conference on the Integration of Latin American and Caribbean Peoples approved the “Letter to the People for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean”. The letter contains a summary of the event’s discussions and notes for advancing the integration of the people of the region. The Conference, which began February 22, ended February 24. In total, 4,000 people, from more than 20 countries in the region, participated in the event. Colombian Vice President Francia Marquéz was also present at the Conference.
“The unity of our people is fundamental to stopping an extreme right that wants to destroy our national and popular sovereignty to place our countries at the service of international financial capital and its transnational companies,” states an excerpt from the letter. The subject was one of the main topics discussed in the activity.
The Letter also expressed solidarity with the Revolutions in Cuba and Venezuela, in addition to denouncing the colonial domination over Haiti and the genocide promoted by the State of Israel over the Palestinian people. “The international community must respond, resoundingly, to the people’s call for an immediate ceasefire and the creation of a sovereign and free Palestinian State,” stated the document.
Furthermore, the letter supported President Lula’s statements about the Israeli attacks. “If Lula is persona non grata, the Latin American people are persona non grata for Israel,” it highlighted.
Environmental issues were also a central focus of the document. “We have called and will meet again with all our organizations and people to hold a great People’s Summit, in the context of COP30, next year, in Belém, Pará”, he points out.
In the end, the Letter indicated dates for unified struggles across the continent: March 2 and 8, April 17, May 1, June 5 and October 16.
Read the letter in full:
Foz do Iguaçu, February 23, 2023L Conference on the Integration of Latin American and Caribbean Peoples – Letter to the People for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean
We, the people of the world, are experiencing a global structural crisis of the capitalist system, the results of which are unpredictable. This is a product of the unfolding of capitalism in its neoliberal phase, which threatens different aspects of the sustainability of life. As a people, we are suffering a systemic crisis that is manifesting itself in food, environmental, social and economic crises unprecedented in the history of humanity. The precariousness of our jobs and the lack of access to basic rights for a dignified life have placed hundreds of millions of people in a situation of daily “survival” in which migration becomes a distressing necessity for millions. In our territories, we suffer the consequences of environmental crimes produced by transnational corporations in a context of crisis in national states, where international financial capital imposes itself. We are going through a profound crisis of values in which our societies and people are increasingly guided by individualistic and consumerist aspirations.
The growing geopolitical dispute has reinforced the more warlike face of US imperialism and its NATO allies, placing us increasingly at risk of an unprecedented armed conflict. The war in Ukraine is a consequence of this, as is the genocide being committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian People.
Through the Conference on the Integration of Latin American and Caribbean Peoples, we reaffirm our internationalist solidarity and the defense of the Palestinian cause. The international community must heed the people’s call for an immediate ceasefire and the creation of a free, sovereign Palestinian state.
We express our full support and solidarity with President Lula in denouncing the genocide in Palestine. If Lula is persona non grata, the Latin American people are persona non grata for Israel.
Long live the Palestinian people! Long live President Lula!
The people of “Nuestra América” (Our America) had to live in permanent resistance to the imperialist strategies of domination reorganized by big capital. On this path of resistance, our people and their organizations were able to take fundamental steps to advance our historic project of integration of our people. We are sons and daughters of resistance to racist colonialism, the processes of military dictatorships in our region, sons and daughters of popular resistance and rebellions against the neoliberal wave at the end of the last century. Sons and daughters of the “No to FTAA” process. We grew up under the light and heroic resistance of the Cuban revolution and we were in Mar del Plata shouting “ALCA, ALCA carajo!”, together with Comandante Chávez.
Today we meet again because the challenge of the unity of our people and their organizations is fundamental to stopping an extreme right that wants to destroy our national and popular sovereignties to place our countries at the service of international financial capital and its transnational corporations. We also come together to build OUR sovereign integration project based on solidarity and complementarity between our peoples.
Solidarity is a fundamental pillar of our integration, which is why we must reaffirm our solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela and their revolutions as fundamental flags of our process. We reaffirm our commitment to continue working on the international campaign “Let Cuba Live!” to remove the island from the state sponsors of terrorism list, just as we will continue to denounce the genocidal blockade imposed on the Cuban people for more than 60 years.
We denounce that imperialism is reorganizing a campaign to delegitimize the democratic process that is being built by the Venezuelan people and their Bolivarian revolution and we commit to strengthening our solidarity by denouncing the unilateral coercive measures imposed on that country by the United States.
Long Live The Cuban Revolution! Long Live The Bolivarian Revolution!
Strengthening solidarity with Haiti is a permanent task. We condemn the perverse and criminal neocolonial domination in Haiti and commit to developing full and active solidarity with the Haitian people and popular movements. We support their opposition to a military intervention controlled by the United States and inserted into the agenda of imperial domination of the Caribbean region. We demand reparation for the crimes committed against the Haitian people by successive UN peacekeeping forces, such as MINUSTAH, which worsened the structural crisis of that society and shamefully allied themselves with far-right forces completely submitted to the will of the United States. To this day, the Haitian people continue to heroically resist the attacks of imperialism for having carried out the first revolution in our region, opening revolutionary paths on our continent.
Long Live The Haitian People!
We support and defend the autonomy of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, their cultures and their ways of life. We urge governments to return the territories of traditional occupation of the people, as well as Itaipu Binacional to implement a program of reparation to the Avá Guarani on both sides of the dam (Brazil and Paraguay), for the rights violations committed since its construction in the 1970s.
Our regional integration must assume the decolonization of power and culture and build counter-power from the bottom up, from peoples and territories, based on respect for historical processes, memory, ancestry, diverse and rebellious bodies. We must build and position a counter-hegemonic narrative based on reciprocity, complementarity, collectivity and the awareness of being nature.
We, the popular movements and trade union organizations, have been working and demanding that regional integration responds to the concrete needs of the population and also takes into account the idea that it will not be possible to overcome the economic and social limitations of countries in isolation. These premises are associated with the generation of living and working conditions for the entire population and that this must be a structural condition of the sustainable development model. An integration that recovers work and employment as economic facts that underlie the production and reproduction of life, the creation of wealth and well-being, where the “what” and “how” to produce are at the center, where women are respected as protagonists of the economy and bearers of rights.
Our regional integration must assume the right of people to define their own political strategies and agroecological and fair systems of food production, distribution and consumption, based on peasant and small-scale production, and recognizing the central role of women. This is a fundamental pillar in the fight against the climate, biodiversity, water, and food crises. Regional integration must also respond to the collective construction of a just, popular and feminist transition. This is an essential proposal in the dispute for urgent and necessary transitions for the process of transforming societies and the construction of an emancipatory popular political project.
A structural feature of our project is the integration of a feminist and diverse perspective that recognizes and reaffirms the central role of women as political subjects. It also demands the full realization of women’s rights to territory, land and the means of production to guarantee their economic autonomy, their bodies and their lives. Another fundamental element is fair remuneration for their work and the development of diverse and fair systems for the production, distribution and consumption of goods.
An integration project must defend that all people have the right to migrate or not migrate and to return to their countries of origin. Migration is an economic, social, cultural and political phenomenon that is part of the processes of formation of societies and nations. It is necessary to eradicate the criminalization of migration and encourage migrants to integrate economically, socially, culturally and politically in their host countries. We reject xenophobia and hate speech against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
We are living in a historic moment on our continent and in the world. Today, gathered here, thousands of comrades from popular movements and trade union organizations in the region, we reaffirm that we are living in a historic moment:
- Our commitment to work and fight to promote our dreams and hopes for a united continent, defending and building territories sovereign and free where we, the workers, can live happy and with dignity.
- We will continue to mobilize across the continent in defense of our rights and environmental, social, economic and gender justice throughout the year: March 2 and 8, April 17, May 1, June 5 and October 16, are some of the dates on which we will take to the streets in unity.
- We convene and bring together again all our organizations and people to hold a major Peoples’ Summit within the framework of COP 30 next year, in Belém do Pará, Brazil.
Comrades, today we emerge from this Conference strengthened, our hopes rise, because, if our path is one of struggle and unity, our horizon is one of victory. It is that of a free, fair and sovereign continent.
Long live the integration of our peoples!
Long live Latin America and the Caribbean united!
We will live and we will win!