By Alejandra Garcia on June 29, 2023
The Sao Paulo Forum kicked off in Brasilia, Brazil today with the attendance of 150 leaders and political actors from 23 Latin American nations, who will hold discussions until July 2 on urgent issues, such as Latin American and Caribbean sovereignty and integration.
The overriding questions will be how to build popular power, defend socialism as an alternative to capitalism, and achieve the development of our people. Participants will have the opportunity to seek answers to these and other questions over the next four days.
According to the organizers of the event, which is in its 26th edition, the region is marked today by a change in the regional correlation of forces and leftist electoral victories in 10 countries. The following days will constitute a space for the exchange and the articulation of progressive, democratic, and left-wing forces. They will be days of introspection and debate on local challenges and the directions of the continent of the Americas. The Forum was founded by Fidel Castro and Lula da Silva in 1990, and is the largest conference of leftist political parties, social movements and labor unions in Latin America & the Caribbean,”
“We are in Brasilia with the certainty that united we will be free. There is no time to lose in the struggle to bury the Monroe Doctrine -which advocates an America for the ‘Americans’- and that the integrationist ideals of Bolivar and Jose Marti make their way, for the good,” Cuban Congressman Elier Ramirez shared on his Twitter account from the venue of the event in Brasilia.
The Forum returns to Brazilian soil, amid a new stage of transformations in favor of the majorities, with the return to power of the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the founders and promoters of Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration.
Leaders of political parties, social movements, and trade unions in Latin America are once again coming together for face-to-face after three years in which the world was paralyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic. On this occasion, leaders from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America were also invited.
The opening orientation of the organizers fórum which last met in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2019 stated, “the continent left-wing forces have led an intense struggle for the defense of the political, economic and social rights of the peoples, while the pro-imperialist right wing travels the route of coups and illegality,”
For that reason major topics discussed by the political leaders will be around condemning the US economic blockades of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, discuss the future and the commitment to the Amazon to save humanity from climate disaster while analyizing the events that have marked the region’s political map.
They will also discuss the conflict in Ukraine, the world economic crisis, the position of emerging countries against the domination of the dollar, the threat posed by the resurgence of international neo-fascism, and its challenge to the global left.
“Let us overcome differences. Let us build the broadest unity in the diversity of our parties, social and popular movements, and the left-wing ideology within each organization, country, and continent. Imperialism stalks like a wounded beast. Our people can wait no longer for us. Either we do it together, or they will do it on their own,” leaders said in a statement.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US