With the participation of the President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, the general debate of the XVIII Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), dedicated to the “Defense of the Bandung Principles to ensure a concerted and adequate response to the challenges of the contemporary world”, began.

BAKÚ, Azerbaijan – Breaking the siege of the increasingly strong blockade of the United States and after traveling more than 11,300 kilometers, the Cuban delegation participating in the XVIII Summit of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries arrived in the port city of Baku, “because the current serious challenges require us to retake the role that, as a movement that brings together the majority of the planet, corresponds to the Non-Aligned in the international arena”.

This is what President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said when he spoke on behalf of Cuba at the meeting of the Movement that brings together more than two thirds of the United Nations and around 55% of the world’s population. Along with leaders from 120 countries, the Cuban leader stressed the need to work together, adhering to the founding principles of Bandung. It is our responsibility as politicians and nobody will do it for us,” he said.

The Cuban President considered that the nations that have paid the highest price for progress with their blood, sweat and suffering have every right to ask why military expenditures are increasing, why the gravity of climate change is underestimated and why arms are not silenced and nations compensated.

“Cuba is honored to be the first Latin American country in the NAM. This concert of free nations that operates under democratic rules and without veto is what we defend and dream of seeing one day at the UN”.

The president reiterated Cuba’s solidarity with all peoples who are fighting for the recognition of their free right to self-determination; the rejection of the unilateral decisions of the United States in support of Israel and against Iran; and the call to put an end to the war against the Syrian people and to find a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It also rejected U.S. campaigns against political forces, leftist leaders and progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean; and reaffirmed solidarity with the constitutional President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, and the Bolivarian Revolution, and support for the Nicaraguan government in the face of U.S. attempts to destabilize that nation.

In his words, Díaz-Canel congratulated the people of Bolivia and President Evo Morales Ayma on his re-election. At the same time, he denounced the attempted coup d’état promoted there and the campaign of distortions, destabilization and violence unleashed by sectors of the opposition and instigated by the United States.

“World War III is not the next war. It is the war without a beginning date or an end date, which for years has been bleeding out noble and peaceful nations, with weapons from imperial armies, mercenary soldiers and terrorists disguised as liberators, in the name of the fight against terrorism, the defense of democracy, freedom or human rights. Lies!”.

In the 21st century, threats and aggressions of varying degrees rain down on all sovereign governments that refuse to serve the hegemonic power to install military bases, hand over their resources or give in to its mandate, he said.

There is the heroic Venezuela, he reaffirmed, which for decades was plundered of its almost infinite energy reserves, until the Bolivarian Revolution rescued them to put them at the service of its people and of regional and international solidarity and cooperation.

“At the height of infamy and cynicism, the empire accuses the Bolivarian Government of being an instrument of Cuba. As they neither practice nor know solidarity, blind of evil and impotence, they accuse our collaborators of health, of disguised soldiers and they persecute and block trade between our nations, affecting the vitality of our economies”.

The Caribbean statesman denounced in the Baku Congress Center that the United States “breaks agreements, unleashes commercial, electronic and media wars. They close doors, erect walls, confiscate assets, steal funds, prohibit exchanges. They ignore and violate international laws. They promise to make America great, their America which is not ours.

Díaz-Canel thanked the Non-Aligned countries for their historic position of condemning and rejecting the five-decade blockade and the Helms-Burton Act. “Against all human logic of coexistence in respect for differences, the blockade is tightened every day. Barely a week goes by without the announcement of new measures to strangle our economy.

Like the pirates of other times, he said, the current U.S. government has extended its policy of encirclement to the sea, persecuting and sanctioning companies with fury,

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