Cuba ratifies support for Caricom in its claims

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 8 (ACN) Cuban president Raul Castro ratified the support of his country to the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in all the just claims, and urged to prevent the destruction of the constitutional order in Venezuela.

We support the demand to receive cooperation in accordance with their real situation and needs, and not on the basis of per capita income statistics that classify them as middle-income countries and exclude them from the flows of financial resources essential for their development, Raul said.

According to a report from Prensa Latina, when intervening in the opening of the VI Caricom-Cuba summit, in Saint Mary, Antigua and Barbuda, Raúl said that Havana unites its voice against the persecution by transnational financial capital centers that seek to damage the international reputation of the Caribbean countries.

The Cuban leader rejected those practices that "hinder their economic development through inclusion in spurious and unilateral lists, and the singularization in dangerous supranational endeavors supposedly for the confrontation of corruption".

We strongly support the fair demand of the Caribbean Community for compensation by the colonial powers for the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, he continued before the leaders of 14 states of the Caricom meeting on Friday on the summit of the group regional.

As heads of State and Government, said Raul Castro, we also have an urgent duty with our peoples to advance with increasingly solid steps toward the political, economic and social integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The President valued the trajectory of Caricom, the participation of all its members and Cuba in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and the Association of Caribbean States, as well as the membership of some in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.

He said that these purposes have contributed to the advancement of regional integration, which we must continue to promote, he exhorted, noting that participation in Petrocaribe has represented "a guarantee and significant contribution to the development of our countries."

Raúl Castro highlighted the signing of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace during the Celac summit of January 2014 in Cuba, as a basis for the development of respectful relations between the states.

Therefore, we should not allow that Venezuela, one of the Latin American and Caribbean nations, to "suffer continuous actions that persecute the destruction of its constitutional order," he warned.

Cuba reiterates its permanent solidarity and support to the heroic Venezuelan people, to its civic-military union, to the Bolivarian and Chavez government, headed by President Nicolás Maduro Moros, sentenced Raúl Castro.

He added that Cubans "deeply thank our Caribbean brothers for their unalterable position of respect and solidarity towards our Homeland (...) We will never forget the permanent support for resolutions against the blockade against Cuba, as well as numerous expressions of solidarity," he said.

The Cuban President indicated that this support is even more relevant in the face of the setbacks caused by the actions of the new US government against his country, and affirmed that the US blockade constitutes the greatest obstacle to the economic and social development of Cuba and the world´s relations with Cuba.