Cuba Vice President welcomes Sandinista victory in Nicaragua
Campaign News | Wednesday, 8 November 2006
Carlos Lage says it confirms political shift in Latin America
Havana, Nov 7 (ACN) Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said on Monday that the victory of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in the recent Nicaraguan presidential elections is also the victory of Latin America in the face of the US pressures.
Carlos Lage headed the Cuban delegation to the 16th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government held last week in Montevideo, Uruguay.
In statements to Monday?s La Mesa Redonda Cuban Radio and Television program, the Cuban Vice President recalled that last August 12th, Nicaragua?s Daniel Ortega had denounced the US maneuvers in the Organization of American States to thwart the Sandinista front from achieving an electoral victory.
The Sandinista triumph is a defeat for the United States and it confirms the tendency of changes in Latin America, previously marked in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, said the Cuban Vice President.
Referring to previous Ibero-American summits, Carlos Lage explained that those meetings had for years praised neoliberal policies and privatization, with the exception of Cuba, whose positions were expressed by President Fidel Castro. However, there has been a change in the prevailing discourse at the summits because the voice of Cuba was joined by that of Venezuela?s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia�s Evo Morales and because in general terms the market has been discarded as a solution to the problems, while neoliberal policies have failed.
Carlos Lage addressed the social and economic advancement taking place in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia and stressed the urgent need to improve the living conditions of Latin Americans.
Addressing the migration issue, the Cuban leader recalled the classical repressive and brutal methods used against migrants, and recalled events on the US-Mexican border. He underscored the generalized rejection by the Ibero-American Summit of the wall that Washington is building on its border with Mexico.
Lage described the fact that a country has to live on remittances sent in by its emigrants as humiliating, while its major source of income should be its own economic development. He recalled that the migration problem will only have a solution when current neoliberal exploitation models are transformed and social inequalities eliminated.
He referred to advances in Venezuela and Bolivia in the fields of literacy and public health, both with Cuba?s cooperation, a fact that proves the significance of relations on the basis of solidarity. Lage also denounced the US brain-drain plans against Cuba to take away its doctors and damage its friendly relations with other nations.
The Cuban Vice President thanked the Uruguayan people for their solidarity with Cuba and said in a rally held in Montevideo where the people expressed those same feelings, particularly in respect to Cuban President Fidel Castro, to whom they wished a speedy recovery.
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2006/nov7carloslage.htm
