Sao Paulo Forum Opens in Cuba
Elio Delgado Legon
HAVANA TIMES – The 24th edition of the Sao Paulo Forum is being held in Havana from July 15-17. It brings together leaders, former presidents and social leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean, with the aim of uniting ideas and efforts. The goal is to put an end to the International Right’s counter-revolutionary offensive within the region today, which is being directed and financed by US Imperialism, who has decided that it wants to recover the ground it has lost over recent years.
The Sao Paulo Forum is a space for dialogue, which was created in 1990 as a result of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPAL), organized by Brazil’s Workers’ Party, bringing to life an initiative created by its president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the Cuban Revolution’s historic leader Fidel Castro.
This is the second time that the Forum is held in Havana, the first time was when the 4th Meeting took place in 1993 when Fidel Castro told the Latin American Left: “We won’t have any future without unity and integration.”
Today, this reality is even clearer as we are seeing the Latin American Right (who have sold out to Imperialism) turn to coup attempts, buying off legal powers so that they act against Leftist leaders, even when they still haven’t defined their political agenda, which some voters could see as a good thing, because they are unable to reach power by the channels offered by a representative democracy.
Examples of this litigation process in Latin American politics include the parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff and the unfounded charges and prison sentence against Lula da Silva; accusations against Cristina Fernandez, Fernando Lugo and Rafael Correa. And when they have been unable to use this strategy, like in Venezuela and Nicaragua, they then resort to violence in order to destabilize the government, creating a climate of chaos and death so that they can then accuse the government of police repression and encourage foreign intervention.
Latin America’s neoliberal Right have everything going for them: they have enough money to ram political propaganda down voters’ throats; they own the country’s main media platforms and yet they still have to resort to using the above-mentioned methods because they lack popular support. Therefore, if the Left were to take intelligent action and stand together on a common front, making their political agenda known, which is based on benefitting the masses of workers (which are the majority in every country), then they will never be defeated at the polls.
This is what the current Sao Paulo Forum’s objective is, to the best of my understanding, to get every Leftist leader in the region, from different parties and social groups to understand the need right now to stand together on a common front in every country and put the most capable leaders forward for elections, who can defend policies with everyone’s social wellbeing at heart, especially the most vulnerable and workers, because a political system that benefits workers, benefits all of society.
Today, we can repeat Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s words when he said at the 4th meeting in 1993: “The least we can do and the least the Latin American Left can do is create awareness in favor of unity. This needs to be written on the Left’s banners. With socialism and without socialism.”
They had a neat little comment on CNN yesterday with a reference to a cure for TDS. The cure apparently is a pill which only has to be taken once, named ReZine.
Oh! what is TDS? Trump Derangement Syndrome
I can be a harsh critic of the USA. But this saddens me.
Apparently Putin kept his subservient little trump waiting for a good hour prior to their meeting.
And then trump had to bend over for big Vladimir in front of the whole world whilst Vlad smirked at the camera.
Complete and total revenge for the Yeltsin era.
Never thought that I would ever see this type of humiliation.
Astonishing and truly sad.
I agree with what you say Mr MacD. I feel huge sympathy for the decent people of the USA. For those trump supporters, I just feel pity.
I feel a degree of sympathy for those Americans who must feel embarrassed and deeply frustrated as a consequence of their elected President’s ‘performance’ in Europe in front of the world’s media. This boasting narcissistic bully utters insults to all US allies, but when actually face-to-face with the subjects of his insults and lies, becomes a fawning pussy-cat merely dressed as a big bad wolf but toothless when facing adversaries as demonstrated in Singapore and then Helsinki. Kim Jung Un and Vladamir Putin both had him for a sucker.
Mr P,
I would totally agree that Elio’s comments are one sided.
But yet again I would put forward the point that you seem very hesitant to go into the brutal record of your own country on matters which Elio refers to.
Perhaps you feel that the USA is in some way morally absolved because much of that brutality occurred during the Cold War?
I was always under the impression that Russia lost the Cold War.
But wait a minute…..
What is this I hear ?
Are the Russians still in the game ??
Is this a late Russian surge toward a last minute victory ???
And what can the USA do about it when your current President is clearly batting for the other team ????
Tune in next week folks for the next thrilling installment of……….
‘The Empire Strikes Back’
Humour aside, Mr P and Mr MacD, although we disagree on very much, I suspect that you may both be as astonished and as worried as I am regarding the developments of trump’s ‘European Tour’ ?
Elio is a “piece of work”. His blind adherence to Castro socialist dogma despite the truth staring him in the face is amazing. To blame US imperialism on the violence provoked by Nicaraguan paramilitary groups against students in local Catholic churches is beyond reason. To lay the blame for 1000 percent inflation rates in Venezuela at the feet on US policy is profoundly ridiculous. The struggle of the failed political left in America Latina is wholly the fault of phony policy and corrupt leadership. Elio continues to regurgitate Castro propaganda and at each post is less and less in touch with reality.
No doubt the leading figures at this “forum” will include such prominent “progressive” luminaries as Nicholas Maduro, Raul Castro Ruz, Daniel Ortega and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez for these are the “most capable leaders” to whom Elio refers.
To speak of the “neoliberal right” ramming political propaganda down voters throats, when Elio himself has been subjected for neigh on sixty years to the ceaseless endeavors of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of Cuba in all the forms of media and with no alternate opinions being permitted is really a stretch of imagination.
Communist propaganda is spread across Cuba for all to see, on hoardings for the tourists, on TV, in every classroom in every school, and plastered across both the interior and exterior walls of public offices including the post office and even the ice cream parlours! In our town at the MININT office (where licenses etc. are issued), I counted forty seven (47) photographs of Fidel Castro, all this endless promotion of the cult of the personality has clearly been successful with Elio who has swallowed the lot – HOOK, LINE and SINKER!