“Today we must reaffirm our commitment that never will a people of Latin America and the Caribbean use violence against a fraternal country,”
Xiomara Castro, President of Honduras and new President of CELAC
By Tim Young, Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America
At its recent eighth summit meeting of CELAC, the regional bloc of 33 Latin American and Caribbean states, its new president, Honduran president Xiomara Castro, celebrated the tenth anniversary of the proclamation of Latin America as a ‘Peace Zone’.
CELAC was launched in 2011 as an alternative to the US-founded Organisation of American States (OAS), specifically to deepen Latin American integration and reduce the overbearing influence of the US on the politics and economics of Latin America.
Xiomara Castro, who beat her right-wing opponent in the Honduran presidential election in 2021, becoming Honduras’s first female president, stated her “unwavering commitment” to peace.
She continued: “today we must reaffirm our commitment that never will a people of Latin America and the Caribbean use violence against a fraternal country,” insisting that “the problems and differences among this bloc’s countries must be resolved among ourselves without external interference or pressure, using dialogue as a tool, and always thinking about regional well-being and the self-determination of peoples.”
Currently in Latin America, the peace process in Colombia has made significant progress, with invaluable contributions from CELAC countries, while Guyana and Venezuela have agreed a joint declaration for dialogue and peace to deal with their territorial dispute over the Essequibo area.
But while a large number of Latin American countries, notably Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela, have made strong calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and a peace agreement, eight of the 33 CELAC countries could not agree with the statement on the Israel-Gaza conflict made by outgoing CELAC president Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Xiomara Castro concluded by urging Latin America to speak up on all peace issues, quoting murdered Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres’s recommendation to “exercise humanity because there is no time left.”
- Tim Young is an organiser for the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. You can follow the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
