Fidel always believed in the participation of the people, Diaz-Canel affirms

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 17 (ACN) Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the country, recalled today how Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro conceived the participation of the people, their preparation and level of knowledge and awareness to win any battle.

The Cuban leader made a brief speech at the 14th International Meeting of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems, during a panel dedicated to the book The Economic and Social Crisis of the World, conceived 40 years ago by Fidel and a group of experts from the Center for Research on the World Economy (CIEM by its Spanish acronym).

Diaz-Canel, the panelists themselves and other delegates of that academic event, which concludes today at the Havana Convention Center, agreed on the validity of the text and the call of the historic leader of the Revolution for a better world because the multidimensional crisis he foretold decades ago has become more complex.

The head of state highlighted Fidel's power of summoning, of sowing awareness in the population, of promoting in labor and student centers, military units and in the community the knowledge and understanding of the battles that were being carried out, such as the non-payment of the foreign debt by Third World nations.

He stressed the importance he gave to knowledge and culture, in the broadest sense, to confront the attempts of cultural colonization promoted by U.S. imperialism on a global scale, and to find answers to today's challenges.

PhD. Jose Luis Rodriguez, CIEM researcher, explained that the book was published in 1983 at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, and the ideas of his economic thought collected in the text were very useful for the Non-Aligned Movement, whose presidency the Island had assumed.

Other topics discussed in the panel included the revolutionary leader and international trade relations, the foreign debt and the impossibility of paying it, the international monetary and financial system, and militarism or the arms race, issues still of great concern given the worsening of the world scenario.