On Sunday, September 6, 205 years since the publication of the Jamaica Letter, the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples was inaugurated as a new space for the research, dissemination, debate, solidarity and strengthening of international relations.
The inauguration took place via YouTube on the Institute’s Spanish and English channels.
«Our institute is formally inaugurated today, but the truth is that it already existed. The peoples have raised their voices in favor of Venezuela, and we at the same time have raised our voices for humankind’s great causes,» said the President of the Institute Carlos Ron in his opening speech.
Ron explained that faced with the crisis of the capitalist model, a new model should emerge, a model based on solidarity and world peace.
«Because peace means a guaranteed right, a sustainable planet, away from imperialism and racism. The greatest Bolivarian, our Commander Hugo Chávez, expressed it in the clearest way possible,» he recalled.
Likewise, Ron asserted the future of the multipolar world lies on unity and determination «to defend ourselves against new colonialism.»
«My friends, be aware that you have a people who knows about struggles, who recognize them and share them,» he said.
The President of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace dedicated its inauguration to U.S. activist Kevin Seeze, one of the members of the Protection Collective of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington who passed away on Sunday.
«You have thought of my country and taken interest in it. This act inspires in me the liveliest of praises. To Kevin, who’s always with us, we dedicate this inauguration,» said Ron.
Also, Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, stressed this initiative was created to coordinate solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, but also solidarity from Venezuela and our America with all the revolutions and just causes of the world.
«We want to articulate what we have already done,» said Arreaza.
«This institute is yours; it belongs to the peoples of the world. We want you to use it as your own (…) From Venezuela, we express our solidarity with all your struggles, with Julian Assange and his most unfair imprisonment, with the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples, with all of those who are oppressed and subjected to unfair wars and imperialism.»
The Venezuelan foreign minister explained President Nicolás Maduro is the architect of this project which was named after Liberator Simón Bolívar.
«Being named after Simón Bolivar poses a challenge. He did not only think of his small Homeland; he also thought of Colombia, the Great, a multipolar world. It is quite a commitment,» he said.