Message from President-Comandante Daniel at the VIII Meeting of the Association of Caribbean States
March 29, 2019
President Daniel Ortega participates in the 8th ACS Heads of State Meeting
Dear brothers and Sisters of the Association of Caribbean States, how much Pride for our People, how much Joy, that in the year of the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Association of Caribbean States you have decided to hold this Eighth Summit here in Nicaragua.
We salute all the delegations that are with us; the Presidents. To our brother Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of the Sister Republic of Cuba; to brother President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, of the Republic of El Salvador; to the Vice Prime Minister of Dominica, our brother Reginald Austrie; to our brother of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Aristóbolo Istúriz, Vice President for the Social and Territorial Sector, and Minister of Education.
To June Soomer, Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States, our Secretary General; to our brother Vinicio Cerezo, Secretary General of SICA; to Senator Paul Chet Greene, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Trade of Antigua and Barbuda; to Senator Jerome Walcott, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Barbados; to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belize, brother Wilfred Elrington; to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Labor of Grenada, brother Peter David.
To the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saint Lucia, Senator Sarah Flood Beaubrun; to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Suriname, Sister Yildiz Deborah Pollack; to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago, Senator Dennis Daniel Moses; to the Undersecretary of State of the Offices of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Sister Republic of Honduras, Norma Allegra Cerrato; to the Ambassador of Colombia, Carlos Salgar; to the Ambassador of Guatemala in Trinidad and Tobago, and here accompanies us, Mario Torres Townson.
To the Ambassador of Guyana in Cuba, Halim Majeed; to the Ambassador in Trinidad and Tobago and Permanent Representative of Mexico to the ACS, Rosario A. Molinero, of the Sister Republic of Mexico; to the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, Luis José González Sánchez; to the Ambassador of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in Cuba, Ellsworth John; to the Director of the Department for the Americas and the Caribbean of Jamaica, Marsha Coore Lobban; to the Director General of International Economic Relations, Ana Luisa Bustamante Cividanes, of the Sister Republic of Panama.
To the Chargé d'Affaires of the Republic of Costa Rica, Oscar Solis Rangel; the Representative of the Virgin Islands, Premier Andrew Fahie; the Chairman of the Executive Council of Martinique, Alfred Marie-Jeanne; the Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Marteen, Jorien Wuite; the Ambassador in Trinidad and Tobago of the Republic of France, Serge Lavroff; and the Ambassador of the Netherlands in Trinidad and Tobago, Jules Bijl.
We greet them and their companions.
We also greet the Founding Observers of CARICOM, Valerie Alleyne Odle, Advisor to the Secretary General; Jhonson Alexander; Diane Quarless of ECLAC, Director of the Caribbean Subregional Headquarters.
We also greet the Representatives of the Observer States: from Saudi Arabia, the Ambassador to Cuba, Faisal Muslat Almandeel; the Ambassador to Nicaragua, Percy Paredes, of the Sister Republic of Bolivia; the Counsellor and Head of Cooperation of Canada, Karen Austin; the Ambassador, Director of North America, Central America and the Caribbean, of Chile, Gloria Cid Carreño.
To the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Managua, Young-Sam Choi; to the Ambassador of the Republic of Ecuador in Managua, María Belén Moncayo; to the Ambassador of Egypt in Panama, Sherif Naguib; to the Ambassador Representative to the ACS of the United Arab Emirates, Bader Almatrooshi; to the Ambassador of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, Javier Carbajosa, to the Ambassador of India in Panama, Ravi Thapar; to the Ambassador of Italy in Managua, Caterina Bartonelli; to the Counsellor of the Embassy of Japan, Hitoshi Kawazoeoe; to the Counsellor of the Embassy of Japan, Hitoshi Kawazoeli; to the Ambassador of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, Javier Carbajosa; to the Ambassador of India in Panama, Ravi Thapar; to the Ambassador of Italy in Managua, Caterina Bartonelli; to the Counsellor of the Embassy of Japan, Hitoshi Kawazoeli.
To the Director of the International Cooperation Agency of the Palestinian State, Imad Zuhairi; to the Ambassador in Managua of the Russian Federation, Andrei Budaev; to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Ivica Dacic; to the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Costa Rica, Nuri Kaya Bakkalbasi; to the Representative of Ukraine, Anatoly Rymar; to the Ambassador of Uruguay in Managua, Jorge Luis Jure.
That is, the 25 Member States, the 9 Associate States, the 6 Founding Observers, the 28 Observer States, the 4 Observer Organizations, and the Special Invitees.
To the Representative, the Ambassador of the European Union, Kenneth Bell, we also offer greetings for your particiption in this Eighth Meeting.
You have already had the opportunity to make progress, taking as a starting point the purpose, the center of the Agenda of this meeting, which has to do with an issue that is also at the center of security for the survival of our peoples on Planet Earth, and uniting efforts in the Caribbean to address Climate Change.
This is a real challenge, a real challenge for the Member States of the Association, for the Island States, for the Countries that are located here in the "waist" of the Continent, from Panama to Guatemala, which is, let's say, a very fragile thread that is already suffering like the Island States also suffer, from the attacks caused by development, development that is not measured in terms of sustainability; because development cannot be unlimited like the development we are familiar with.
Unlimited development becomes destructive development, which, it is true, favors, enriches the countries that historically managed to put themselves at the forefront of development from time immemorial and that made use of their development, first, to dispute hegemony in the known world at that stage, at that time, waging war among themselves.
In other words, what we know as Western Civilization put war into practice, a war first to dominate the area that was becoming the most developed area of the known World of that era. When the Conquistadors had not yet arrived in America, they were already there disputing hegemony to take over Africa, to rule over Africa and over Asia.
From there we have a starting point in development and in the power those Nations achieved; we have a starting point that goes against the most valuable thing that the Planet has, which is the Human Species.
From there came slavery, slavery already in terms of trade; because in other previous Stages slavery was practiced, it was in trivial wars, but then slavery was established in supposedly more advanced eras supposedly more advanced, more developed, but practiced in a totally barbaric way, brutal!
In other words, slaves snatched from their Peoples, from their Communities, and put up for auction, put up for sale, put up for auction. And there came the slave traders, representatives of the interests, of the businesses of the Colonialist Metropolitan centers, they came to buy, and having already discovered America, as they say, having already colonized America, well, then came the traffic of slaves towards America.
This explains why our Regions, and in particular the Peoples that are in the Association of Caribbean States, have been victims of the effects of Climate Change and Climate Warming; we have been victims, slaves and slaves too of the international global situation. Why? Because we do not have the resources to be able to address the damage suffered by our Peoples, the plundering of our Natural Resources, of our Wealth. When the Colonizers came, they came looking for Wealth, and they appropriated all that Wealth, they appropriated that Wealth.
To the extent that we have become aware of the threat to the Planet, to the population, to peoples, we have even been able to make Conventions, Agreements, commitments, where the richest countries, the most developed countries agreed to the commitments, the countries that contaminate the most and at the same time are the very countries that have plundered the wealth of other peoples.
It was possible to create awareness, first there were the Agreements in Japan, Agreements that raised hope, but then they sidelined and development without limits continued; breaking any barrier established by the Agreements, development without limits continued.
By the time we got to the Paris Conference, much greater concern prevailed in both developed and developing countries, and the Paris Agreement was achieved. An Agreement that Nicaragua pointed out, being quite clear that it was the only Agreement that could be reached as far as it went; but Nicaragua made its point and all it did was simply to note what Science said, what the scholars and experts of the very bodies in the United States of North America that monitor the destruction on Planet Earth and global warming on Planet Earth made clear.
Recently, those important centers have even raised new alarms, these centers that belong to the North American power, but are still pointing out the threats that hang, not only over the small Island States here in our Region, or on the coasts, the coastal zones of the Central American Countries, or in areas of Asia, areas of Africa, where the damage is clearly already seen, the destruction, but they also point out the damage that threatens and have already affected the very same North American territory.
And there is now talk of a real catastrophe, and there is talk that actions should be taken beyond those agreed in the Paris Agreement, from which some Nations have withdrawn and have decided not to abide by those commitments. Because they simply do not want to invest, they do not want to contribute in order to protect themselves, but they do not hesitate to invest and they do not hesitate to spend money on the arms race that has been unleashed. Thousands of thousands of billions, for what? For death, for destruction.
It is there where we find points that are a real obstacle to making progress in this struggle, one that is now trying to speed things up, because otherwise the effects will be devastating for all the countries of the Planet, by then the most developed countries will be unable to prevent major floods, droughts, in other words, everything that we have already seen.
And the fact that the Association of Caribbean States has decided to place this issue, this item on the Agenda of its VIII Meeting, clearly indicates the consciousness that exists among our Peoples, among our States, our Nations, to unite efforts and make progress to the extent that we can make progress with our own decisions, with our own albeit limited resources, but at the same time also taking these approaches, these demands to the community of Countries, both developed and developing countries that remain committed to the fight to address the damage, the effects, and prevent the damage of Global Warming, the disasters that are befalling the Planet, that we all know, and that we are all living through.
Taking on the fight in this battle right now is an enormous challenge. To fight this battle is to fight for security, for life itself, for Peace. Because there can be no Peace in our countries given that we are victims of the way in which natural resources are being exploited, the way in which the global economy continues to develop, the way in which awareness is still lacking in the countries that have the power, the strength to contribute to redirecting all our steps, our decisions, our actions around the Agreements that were taken in Paris.
ROSARIO : the struggle to protect life in our countries
is a struggle for security, peace and unity
And as I have said, everything indicates that not only must we defend these Agreements, but we must seek to make commitments in addition to these Agreements, so as to achieve the great objective to do with security, with the human rights of our Peoples. Yes, because one is dealing with a total attack against our peoples’ Human Rights, and those of the developed countries peoples; it is an attack against Peace, it is an attack against the Security of our Planet.
A complex World, a difficult World, a violent World, a World whose peoples demand Peace, and where the important thing is that, in the midst of such complex situations, so difficult, so violent, here in the Association of Caribbean States few are firmly raising this banner, the standard "Uniting Efforts in the Caribbean to Confront Climate Change". A standard that says a lot about the responsibility, seriousness, dignity, conscience and the conviction that our peoples have, that this battle must be fought ion behalf of our peoples and of humanity.
Welcome dear brothers and Sisters, as always, to our land, to Nicaragua.
And how much you honor us, as I have said, having already been in session for three days, this meeting is finishing today, having on its Agenda an issue that is crucial for the human species.