Cuban ambassador: Long way ahead for consolidation of unity in Americas

Cuban Ambassador to Tehran, Vladimir Andres Gonzalez Quesada, said on Sunday that a long way is ahead for consolidation of unity among the Latin American and the Caribbean states, AVA Diplomatic reports.

He made the remarks in a speech to Seminar on the Latin American and the Caribbean States, held at the Venezuelan Embassy in Tehran, marking the 200th anniversary of the Charter of Jamaica.

Quesada said that that there is no doubt the Latin American and Caribbean states have gained big victory but at the same time they are subject to a number of problems they should overcome.

The problems are caused by the measures destabilizing the progressive and revolutionary process in the American continent, he said adding that the important and rich documents of South America like Jamaica Treaty should not be taken for granted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Cuban envoy, while thanking Venezuelan Ambassador to Tehran, Amenhotep Zambrano, for inviting him to attend the meeting, recalled the idea of a united Americas, which dated back to several centuries ago.

He said the idea had many heros like Venezuelan military and political leader, who played an instrumental role in the establishment of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar, and Cuban hero, José Julián Martí Pérez.

He said the idea of united Americas began actually to be materialized from 2004, resulting in the ‘Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas’, or ALBA, an expression coined by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro for a model of integration centered on the alignment of objectives that are politically and ideologically motivated.

Other lecturers in the seminar were the First Secretary and Head of the Political Section at the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Antonio Martinez, Bolivian Charge d’Affairs, Walter Yanez, and Argentinean faculty member, Facundo Meli, as well as Tehran University Professor Dr Abu Mohammad Asgarkhani and an Iranian researcher Abdolhamid Shahrabi.

Dr. Asgarkhani in a lecturer to the meeting asked for devising rules and principles and norms on integration to confront the US package of global governance, for instance the package on trade and transfer of goods, services and capital.

He said the integration should result in a common market, common currency, common security regimes, i.e. the collecton of security regimes.

He said the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) cannot be limited to economy and oil.

He hoped that in light of efforts of the Latin American elite there will be new version of definitions on policy, economy, security and so on. ‘The principles so devised should be in tandem with objectives,’ he announced.

Early in his remarks, he said Iran and Venezuela were both subjected to the US unilateral sanctions: Venezuela was subject of the US unilateral sanctions under pretext of smuggling, while under pretext of nuclear technology.

He noted that the meeting now in Tehran concerns integration of the Latin American states, hoping that the integration will be both in words and deed.

Shahrabi, the Iranian researcher, said that trade volume between Iran and the Latin American states in the first four months of Iranian year of 1394 (2015-2016) was five percentage point of exports to whole the world, which is regretful.

He hoped for removal of the weakness in the future.

Then a package on the Bolivarian Political Ideology was offered to the Seminar, which consisted the Oath of Monte Sacro (Bolívar’s own oath on the hill of Monte Sacro in 1805), Discourse in the Patriotic Society, the Decree of War to the Death, Letter from Jamaica, My Rapture on Chimborazo, the Congress of Colombia, Ultimate declaration, Simon de Bolivar Testament and the Call for the Panama Congress (the Amphictyonic Congress).

Saeed Tamim, who translated Jamaica Treaty from Spanish to Farsi, was offered a certificate of appreciation by the wife of Venezuelan Ambassador to Tehran.

The meeting in Tehran marked the anniversary of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (ALBA), i.e. the 200th anniversary of ‘Jamaica Letter’ , written by the Venezuelan Liberator Simon Bolivar on September 6, 1815 and addressed to ‘an English Gentleman’, and the realization of liberator Simon Bolivar’s dream 200 years (1815-2015) ago.

Simon Bolivar liberated Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador and created Bolivia.

Tehran seminar on Sunday concentrated on Simon Bolivar’s ‘Jamaica Letter’, which said, ‘When we dream alone it is just a dream But when we all dream together, it is the start of a reality and that reality at the present is the big country of Latin America and the Caribbean, the one that Bolivar dreamt and the ideas in the letter that he wrote (La Carta de – Letter from – Jamaica in 1814).’

The now famous “Carta de la Jamaica” (Jamaica Letter), highlighted Simon de Bolivar passion for the independence of the then Spanish South American colonies and the unification of the Americas.

The Jamaica Letter or ‘Carta de Jamaica’ is the document in which Bolivar expounded on the political characteristics and culture of the Americas, calling for liberation from Spanish rule and independence, and the integration and unity of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This visionary document has, through the centuries, served as a strong link between Jamaica and Venezuela, predating and laying a solid foundation of sympathy and goodwill for official diplomatic relationship which began in March 1965.

It has also been cited as the philosophical underpinning for the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.