Politicians, artists, intellectuals and activists of social movements from the region and the world greeted this Sunday, via videoconference, the installation of the Simón Bolívar International Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples, while sharing their reflections on the moment of systemic crisis of the capitalist model in which the foundation attached to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry was born.
From France, Mireille Fanon-Mendès, president of the Frantz Fanon Foundation, contextualized about the historical significance that the emancipation of Simón Bolívar has in the world, which went beyond the liberation of the Bolivarian republics, reaching the abolition of slavery.
The humanitarian activist insisted that it is time to repair the crimes against humanity such as robberies, murders, rapes and looting committed in the colonized countries so the emancipation from the colonial yoke is still pending.
Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, connected from India, pointed out the relevance of the institute, which arises when the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the failure of the capitalist system and how its forces continue to crush the spirit of humanity, being an example the blockades that are maintained against Cuba and Venezuela.
The co-founder of the legendary British rock band Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, offered with all his heart a welcome to the Simón Bolívar Institute, adding that all the peoples of the world, without distinction of color, religion or nationality, need it and that it comes from the walls of the US empire “to help lead us all, from this darkness to the light.”
Likewise, Atilio Borón, an international analyst from Argentina, highlighted that the institute comes at a very suitable moment, in which the United States has redoubled its brutal offensive against the peoples of Latin America.
Another participant in the videoconference, Laura Capote, representative of ALBA Movement of Colombia, pointed out that the launch of the institute “today is in itself a political declaration of following the same course that Simón Bolívar outlined in the Jamaica Letter (1815)”, in which he stated that it was not only independence of the Latin American union “but, above all, he was building a revolutionary future”, a revolutionary and continental political project.
Finally, Fernando Morais, writer and journalist from Brazil, contributed that the institute “has to be an instrument at the service of the Bolivarian Revolution” and that its importance translates into “that it can break down walls that diplomacy sometimes does not break. An institute like this will be of enormous contribution so that we are all together again “in Latin America and the Caribbean.”