Obama Shakes Raul Castro's Hand

[Lauren Johnson]

Castro said he trusts Obama? You gotta wonder what's with that?

Also Maduro from Venezuela who is at the same conference has said something along the lines of "With all respect I do not trust the US/Obama." Cuba has friends who are also watching closely. The US doesn't have the same free hand there in the south any more. The conference has been quite confronting for Obama where many speakers have spoken very freely indeed,

One theory: he had a visit from an economic hit man who made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

[Magda Hassan]

Castro said he trusts Obama? You gotta wonder what's with that?

Also Maduro from Venezuela who is at the same conference has said something along the lines of "With all respect I do not trust the US/Obama." Cuba has friends who are also watching closely. The US doesn't have the same free hand there in the south any more. The conference has been quite confronting for Obama where many speakers have spoken very freely indeed,

On theory: he had a visit from an economic hit man who made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

I'm not sure if Raul's speech has been translated into English yet or made the Anglophone media if it has. Raul unambiguously gave the US and Obama both barrels including referencing JFK's murder when he tried to make peace with Cuba. He wasn't referencing Oswald either. But with the implication that Obama needs to look over his shoulder at his own military and intel services.

[Tracy Riddle]

I can just see Cuba going the same way as Vietnam and China, becoming a favorite place to exploit low-wage labor. A one-party state with a gangster-capitalist economy.

[Lauren Johnson]

I'm not sure if Raul's speech has been translated into English yet or made the Anglophone media if it has.

If you find it, I would love to read it.

[Magda Hassan]

I can just see Cuba going the same way as Vietnam and China, becoming a favorite place to exploit low-wage labor. A one-party state with a gangster-capitalist economy.

That's what it was like before the revolution. No one wants that. Already has full employment. No poverty. No one starves. All basic needs met, food, shelter and health and education. May not have money to buy Louis Vuitton luggage and Jimmy Choo shoes. That's all. But then people have sold them selves for less.

[Magda Hassan]

I'm not sure if Raul's speech has been translated into English yet or made the Anglophone media if it has.

If you find it, I would love to read it.

Here it is in Spanish. I am still trying to find one with English subs or an English transcript of it.

[Magda Hassan]

Here is a Googlish translation of the 'Final Declaration of the Summit of the People. Not just Raul's speech but the whole of Latin America united against American Imperialism. I'm still looking for Raul's speech in English and will post it when I can.

* Final Declaration of the Summit of the People *
*http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2015...tgKhH7KUk*

* We the Peoples of Our America *, called the People's Summit, Unions and Social Movements gathered at the University of Panama from 9, 10 and 11, 2015, with more than 3,500 delegates / as representing Hundreds of our workers' organizations, trade unions, farmers, indigenous people, students, women, social and popular movement.

In the framework of a unitary, brotherhood and solidarity discussion, participants in conferences and workshops 15 Summit Peoples

DECLARE:

* We the Peoples of Our America *, we express our strong support for the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace and free from colonialism, as was agreed unanimously by all the governments of the Americas in January 2014 the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

In this regard, we reject military harassment, assaults and threats of any kind which displays the US and its strategic allies against our region through military bases, sites of Operations and similar facilities that only in the last four years have passed 21 to 76 in Our America, 12 of them in Panama and we demand the repeal of the Neutrality Pact, which allows the US military intervention in the Republic of Panama.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine, Mali, Central African Republic, Syria, Ukraine, Nigeria, Pakistan, Congo, Mauritania, Libya and Yemen are just some of the latest US military interventions with its attendant death and desolation. We do not want this situation in our America.

We therefore support the statements by the General Secretariat of UNASUR requesting exclusion of all military bases in our region of peace and affirming that no country has the right to judge the conduct of another and much less to impose sanctions or penalties for account own.

* We the Peoples of America *, we support the Cuban people and their Revolution, we salute the homecoming of the five Cuban heroes, a product of international solidarity and tireless struggle of his people. Demand, along with all the peoples of the world, the immediate and unconditional lifting of the genocidal blockade against the Republic of Cuba by the Government of the United States and the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay without further condition that the respect for International Law and the United Nations Charter.

* We the Peoples of America *, we express our unconditional and unrestricted access to the Bolivarian Revolution and the legitimate government led by comrade Nicolas Maduro support.

Therefore we reject the unjust and immoral interventionist Executive Order of the Government of the United States has sought to draw the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a threat to its national security and has already earned the unanimous rejection of all countries of the Americas.

* We the Peoples of America * reaffirm that Puerto Rico is a Latin American and Caribbean nation with its own distinct identity and history, whose rights to Independence and Sovereignty are violated by a colonial tutelage imposed for more than a century arbitrarily by the American imperialism on that historic struggle for sovereignty and self-determination for Puerto Rico, among them many prisons are serving as Oscar López Rivera, which we demand his immediate release.

* We the Peoples of America *, we reiterate our solidarity and hopefully at the Dialogues for Peace in Colombia, which are held between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP support, we request the opening of a similar table with the ELN with to move in building a process of firm and lasting peace with social justice. We welcome the steps taken by various governments to facilitate the success of this process.

* We the Peoples of America *, we reiterate our permanent and unconditional support to Argentina in its efforts to recover the Malvinas Islands, also, our support for the Plurinational State of Bolivia in perspective and aspiration postponed own output to Mar. We demand the immediate withdrawal of the occupation troops in Haiti, action will allow self-determination. We demand the government of Mexico the live presentation of the 43 student teachers in Ayotzinapa forcibly disappeared.

* We the Peoples of America *, we express the urgent need for the construction and deepening of a new society with social justice and gender equality, with the active participation of young people and the different social actors, with solidarity as fundamental for the integral and sovereign development of our people first. Today exist in our America some lackeys of imperialism trying to sustain and impose the neoliberal model as the solution to the problems and needs of our people, a model that has proven to be the most effective instrument for deepening poverty, misery, inequality, exclusion and the inequitable distribution of wealth is known.

In this situation we declare and call to fight and defend our natural resources, biodiversity, food sovereignty, our commons, Mother Earth and the defense of ancestral rights of indigenous peoples and conquests and social rights. The fight for jobs, work and living wage, social security, pensions, collective bargaining, organizing, the right to strike, freedom of association, occupational health, economic and social rights, respect for migrants and afro descendants, the elimination of child and slave labor, justice, gender equity.

All this is and will be possible if we work in unity and in order to build correlation of forces for the replacement of power to the ruling bloc of social and political one that defends the interests of our peoples.

10 years after the defeat of the FTAA reaffirm our fight against new forms of free trade agreements FTA, TPC, TISA, the Pacific Alliance. So we also continue to maintain that our countries' external debt is uncollectible and unpayable by illegitimate and immoral.

* We the Peoples of America, * salute integration processes that prevail self-determination and sovereignty of our people, processes such as ALBA and CELAC, processes that have strengthened Latin American unity. We need to complement these processes with the participation of social, labor, grassroots organizations, to promote further integration from and for the people.

April 11, 2015

Panama City, Panama


** ------------------------------------------------ -------


* "We do not reach eternity to repent if we can not generate a large planetary movement in defense of the Venezuelan Revolution" Fernando Buen Abad ** ***

[Albert Doyle]

Sounds like they are trying to show they haven't backed down and are still maintaining their revolution. Perhaps rhetoric while shaking hands in public and looking forward towards warming relationships.

[Magda Hassan]

Here is a Googlish translation of the 'Final Declaration of the Summit of the People. Not just Raul's speech but the whole of Latin America united against American Imperialism.

The important thing about this conference is not just that all the countries could agree on the above points, that's an achievement at most conferences, but that several of them have traditionally been safe US proxies such as Colombia and Panama. The conference itself was even held in Panama. They have all signed and all spoken directly to Obama and the US representatives. The US has made several monumental mistakes just the most recent being declaring Venezuela a national security threat. This is taken as threat to all. Which it is of course. The South now have their own integrated banking system and Argentina and Brazil are part of BRICS with others sure to follow. Plus the new Chinese AIIB development bank. Russia and China are establishing major trading relations with the region with Russia also having military bases there once again.

Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.


[video=vimeo;11205275]https://vimeo.com/11205275[/video]

[Tracy Riddle]

I can just see Cuba going the same way as Vietnam and China, becoming a favorite place to exploit low-wage labor. A one-party state with a gangster-capitalist economy.

That's what it was like before the revolution. No one wants that. Already has full employment. No poverty. No one starves. All basic needs met, food, shelter and health and education. May not have money to buy Louis Vuitton luggage and Jimmy Choo shoes. That's all. But then people have sold them selves for less.

How many of the younger generation understand and value that? A lot of them are probably lured by the siren song of the Great American Shopping Mall, and want nothing more than to have all of that stuff. I've seen it many times. A lot of young people from the former USSR came here in the 1990s, swayed by Western popular culture, advertising, etc.