Asamblea de los Pueblos del Caribe
We come from a rich experience of 23 years after the founding of this articulating space created in 1994 as the result of an initiative of the progressive sectors of Trinidad and Tobago and the union organizations of this country. In 2017 the 7th APC was made with the firm will to continue this construction defining guidelines and guidelines to face, collectively, the crisis of global capitalism, promoting sovereign integration processes guided by the good living of our peoples.
This 7th Assembly was dedicated to Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Jesús Adón. The nature of the current crisis with its multiple interconnected dimensions requires us to return to the path of revolutionary ruptures, inspiring us in its legacy and valuable teachings for current and future generations.
Despite the depth of the global crisis, it is evident that there is no solution to it within capitalist logic. However, we are convinced that capitalism does not die of crisis but of revolution.
The wild character of neoliberal capitalism projects us into a time of wars. We are facing a process of imperial remilitarization of the Caribbean basin, hit by the presence of a large number of military bases, infrastructures and the armies of the United States, France, Great Britain, Holland, often disguised behind supposed cooperation agreements and humanitarian interventions. The recent incorporation of Colombia to NATO, together with the construction of new military bases, symbolize dangers and serious threats to the region. Our Assembly condemns the criminalization of social protest and the use of force to which popular movements and social leaders are subjected. For this reason, send a salutary greeting to the struggles of the Caribbean union expressing direct support for the struggle of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG), especially comrade Elié Domota.
We are rebellious peoples that historically have demonstrated our ability to challenge the world order by establishing national projects, radically opposed to the logic of accumulation of the dominant system.
We are in the middle of a violent crisis that hits the popular sectors, the workers and all the peoples of the Caribbean. This crisis should stimulate our commitment to unite as a Caribbean people to face it together and strengthen our capacity and determination to transform the crisis into an opportunity to build a Caribbean civilization based on the sovereignty and well-being of our peoples.
During the rich and intense debates of the 7th Assembly and the previous meetings we have brought to the present the historical struggles of our peoples against oppression and exploitation, highlighting the traditions of the marronage and the great revolutionary victories of Haiti and Cuba in 1804 and 1959. This year 2017 invites us to reflect on the glorious Russian Revolution of 1917, the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital, the centenary of the publication of Lenin’s work on imperialism and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara.
There is no better tribute to Commander Fidel Castro Ruz than to dedicate this Caribbean meeting to his legacy, his solidary vocation and the extraordinary creativity that allowed him to renew internationalism. To pronounce his name is and will always be a call to walk with the sense of the historical moment. His example gives us the certainty that it is possible, in the worst of scenarios, to turn defeats into victories.
We met for the second time in these lands that witnessed a bloody US military intervention in April 1965, where the blood of heroic Dominicans, including Francisco Caamaño and other internationalists fertilize the ideals of revolutionary struggle, lands that also treasure bravery and example to follow of great heroines like Mama Tingó and the Mirabal sisters. Young Haitian revolutionaries like Jacques Viaud who gave their lives defending the dignity of the Dominican nation.
This seventh meeting reaffirms the objectives of the ACP to support and contribute to the strengthening of movements and social organizations in the Caribbean, emphasizing their convergence and articulation to promote our Caribbean identity. Its essence will be based on respect for diversity and resistance against all attacks of colonial domination and its various forms of oppression, criminalization and its new forms of recolonization. In particular, we call for the cessation of femicides in countries of the region.
The participants of the 7th ACP confirm that climate change is real and is an existential threat for all the peoples of the Caribbean and the world. They also recognized that human activity in the advancement of the capitalist development model is reducing the quality of the climate. The Assembly is in solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Thomas, Dominica, St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti who had to regret the loss of hundreds of lives and great economic damages for the passage of 3 hurricanes of great intensity, many of these islands were practically devastated. The consequences of climate change will affect our fragile ecosystems every day. The delegates of the 7th Assembly demand the creation of climate refugee status in the face of extreme events such as those that have just happened in the Caribbean. We must change the system, not the climate!
We condemn the treatment that was reserved to the Puerto Rican citizens, we demand the withdrawal of the Jones cabotage law, we demand the respect of our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters. We denounce the management of this serious humanitarian crisis by the Trump administration that highlights the theory of disaster capitalism, conditions that make us strongly demand the end of the colonial status of this sister island. The APC considers that it is a shame that in the XXI century there are still countries and territories under the colonial yoke. Our Assembly requires the United Nations Decolonization Committee to include the rest of the Caribbean countries under this status. We demand with firmness the independence and sovereignty for these peoples. The APC also sympathizes with the independence of Palestine and Western Sahara.
In almost all Caribbean countries, a seemingly endless debt crisis continues, which has led to the violation of the economic, social and cultural rights of our peoples; the consolidation of the massive structural poverty of our people; the attack on the rights of workers and unions; the destruction of the agricultural sector and the marginalization of the peasants. In this sense we rescued the words of Fidel Castro at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 when he said: “Pay the ecological debt and not the external debt. The hunger disappears and not the man “.
The 7th APC is convinced that the processes of reparation of the crime of slavery, as well as the criminal processes of looting and submission to more than 5 centuries of domination, are fundamental tools for the reconstruction of the Caribbean. We must rebuild our collective memory.
The participants of the VII Assembly of Peoples of the Caribbean reaffirm our commitment to support alternative integration projects, in particular the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas-Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA – TCP), PETROCARIBE and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Spaces that promote popular integration projects and important social advances. Our delegates have suggested that at every meeting of the Caribbean integration mechanisms AEC, CARICOM, etc. there is a presence of the APC.
We express our support and solidarity with the Haitian people in their struggle for the withdrawal of MINUJUSTH, heir to MINUSTAH, which is responsible for crimes and destruction for more than 13 years that includes more than 800,000 affected by cholera and 20,000 deaths. This foreign presence, against the will of the Haitian people, which is an affront to the legacy of the great anti-slavery Revolution in that country. In this regard, we commit ourselves to take action in our countries to express an energetic condemnation of the imperialist occupation of Haiti and to demand justice and reparation. In this sense, the APC resolves that having formally recognized the United Nations responsibility for the introduction of this disease, fulfill with absolute urgency its promise to stop the epidemic, facilitate the construction of adequate infrastructures for the assurance and supply of drinking water and sanitation .
We express our support for the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela and celebrate the victory achieved in the elections of the National Constituent Assembly, as well as the overwhelming success in the recent elections for governors. Venezuela continues to face continuous and permanent attempts by the government of the United States and the opposition to destabilize the Bolivarian process and ignore the sovereign decision of the Venezuelan people. The Assembly is committed to defend the Bolivarian Revolution and to demand the unconditional lifting of the United States blockade against Cuba. No more blocking! WE ARE ALL VENEZUELA!
In light of the aggressive response of the forces of an ultraconservative right to reverse the progress made by the progressive movement in our continent, it has become even more important to strengthen and deepen the processes of political and ideological education within our organizations and in all the region.
The ACP confirms that Food Sovereignty is key to guarantee the self-determination of our countries. The fight against transgenics, agro-toxics and the industrialization of agriculture, according to capitalist logic, constitutes one of the greatest challenges for humanity in its efforts to redefine its consumption patterns and its relationship with nature. The principles of climate justice, the defense of peasant agriculture and our eco-systems should guide us. It is necessary to reinforce the systematic struggle for land tenure.
The APC manifests its projection to mobilize in the fight for the right to decent housing and to promote cooperatives of mutual aid and solidarity economy initiatives that allow reconstructing the picture of everyday life and a relationship with the habitat and communities. The defense of the rights of impoverished urban dwellers must be a priority for our movements.
The 7th Assembly salutes the decade of the black and Afro-descendant peoples decreed by the United Nations for the period 2015-2024. The Assembly recommends social movements in each of our countries to form broad support platforms and to use this space to promote measures against all forms of segregation, discrimination, marginalization based on racism. The Afro-Caribbean roots of most of our countries must be part of the efforts to refound and build new paradigms. Our organizations are preparing for the culmination of this campaign in 2024 in Haiti.
The Assembly organized a tribute to the Creole language and its enormous contribution in the processes of emancipation and cultural resistance in our region. The defense of cultural rights must be a central axis of struggle in a world that suffers the permanent aggressions of the dominant media order and multiple disciplinary mechanisms to try to legitimize the death civilization of capitalism and the induced behaviors.
In the Caribbean region, as in other regions of the world, migratory flows generate despair and suffering in our societies. These migrations are often the result of colonial policies of looting, subjection and racial discrimination. We must transform our tears into energies for struggle and demand the complete freedom of movement of people, these movements are limited only today to the flow of capital and goods. The struggle for the rights of migrants will have a permanent accompaniment in Caribbean organizations.
We denounce sentence 168-13, adopted by the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic that denationalizes hundreds of thousands of citizens creating a very dangerous precedent for migrants from all over the world. This legal provision must be eliminated. This struggle must be articulated in defense of the rights of migrant workers en masse. In this sense, the member organizations of the APC commit themselves to work for a more active presence of the networks of the Caribbean Diaspora in our activities, campaigns and projects.
The 7th APC decides to build a massive awareness campaign and political education. It is essential to unleash a new offensive from the popular sectors against the fascist ideas and options that try to influence in many regions of the planet. In this sense, the construction of TV Caribe and the development of new communication strategies emerge as an urgent need.
The 7th Assembly was preceded by very fruitful meetings of youth organizations, women’s organizations, trade unions, among others. These spaces were generators of new agreements and work projections in networks that work in these sectors. Also, for the first time in our region, a meeting of the Caribbean organizations present in ALBA Movements, continental articulation space that has made important advances in recent years. Eight Caribbean countries have been able to deepen their ties with the continental dynamics and structure work in our sub-region.
Each and every one of the participants in this important process expressed the need to prepare a concrete plan of actions and struggles around the priorities defined in this declaration. The new world we want and the other possible Caribbean must be built in the heat of anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, anti-racist, eco-feminist projects, safeguarding our rich history with the coordinated work of revolutionary movements and unity in action. In the unit is strength.
Finally, we must underline the hospitality and the work developed by the Dominican organizing committee, especially all the members of the Dominican chapter of the APC.
The integrated and committed Caribbean family for the construction of socialism is expanding. The 7th APC had a resounding success with the participation of 19 countries, the presentation of texts and proposals that stimulated effective collective reflection on complex problems and that have sown the seeds of a future characterized by rebellion and determination. We must also highlight the presence of important networks: CLOC-Vía Campesina, Cry of the Excluded, International Alliance of Inhabitants (AIH), Women’s International Democratic Federation (FDIM), Network of artists, intellectuals and social movements In defense of the Humanity (EDH), Popular Education Council of Latin America and the Caribbean (CEAAL), network of educators and popular educators of the Martin Luther King Center (CMMLK), as well as the messages received from Jubilee South America, from the Economics Society Latin American Policy (SEPLA), of the Working Groups: “Crisis and the global economy” and “Crisis, responses and alternatives in the Greater Caribbean” of CLACSO.
We call to meet again in Trinidad and Tobago in 2019.
For a united and sovereign Caribbean!
Overcome!
OUTLINE OF ACTION PLAN AND CALENDAR
• Guarantee the presence of Caribbean organizations and movements in the Continental Conference for Democracy and against Neoliberalism, in Montevideo, Uruguay from November 16 to 18, 2017.
• People’s Summit in front of the COP23 meeting in Germany from November 6 to 17, 2017
• Motivate the presence of Caribbean social organizations and movements at the People’s Summit in the framework of the ninth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Buenos Aires from December 10 to 13, 2017
• International Assembly of movements and organizations of the Peoples, Caracas – beginning of March 2018
• Ensure the presence of Caribbean social organizations and movements at the Summit of the Peoples in the framework of the 8th Summit of the Americas, Peru April 9-14, 2018
• Ninth regional meeting of solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua – July 2018
• Meeting of the Forum of Sao Paulo in Havana, July 2018
• 8th World Social Forum on Migration in Mexico at the end of 2018
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – October 29, 2017.
