Cuba announces seminar to abolish U.S. bases and NATO

Friends in solidarity with Cuba are invited to come to Guantanamo for a two-day conference May 4 to 6 to abolish foreign U.S. military bases and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), says the call by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples and World Peace Council.

This VII International Seminar for Peace will demand “the end of the arms race that imperialism is developing together with its NATO allies, who with their eagerness to expand, and their propaganda and communication hysteria, place the world on the brink of a new global conflagration.”

At a moment when the United States seeks to add Colombia to the ranks of NATO, this conference will “reiterate the importance and full validity of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace” approved by all the heads of state and government of the region who met at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States 2014 Summit in Havana, Cuba.

Held in Guantanamo City in Cuba’s Guantanamo province, the conference program includes a visit to Caimanera, a small town on the edge of Guantanamo Bay in view of the U.S. military base illegally occupying Cuban territory. Delegates will meet with Caimanera residents in a social engagement hosted by the local Committee for Defense of the Revolution. 

“For 119 years the U.S. government has illegally maintained, against the will of the Cuban people and government, a naval base that has become a center of torture to prisoners in total violation of their human rights,” says the conference call. The demand to close the prison grows stronger each year, as prisoners who have been tortured so badly that no credible trial was possible after 20 years are finally released. 

But Guantanamo is more than a prison. A short video made by Resumen Latinoamericano exclaims: “All Guantanamo is Ours,” showing why the demand must also be “U.S. Out of Guantanamo.” Return that massive territory astride the mouth of an enormous, beautiful bay to the Cuban people!

More information about the seminar to abolish foreign bases and NATO can be found at ICAP’s website, SiempreConCuba.org, and will also be available in the near future through the National Network On Cuba (NNOC), the umbrella organization for U.S. activity in solidarity with Cuba.

The NNOC is organizing U.S. participation in the XV International Voluntary Work and Solidarity Brigade from April 24 to May 8.