Represented by Executive Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela joined on Wednesday the complaint shared by the region’s country about the inequitable access to COVID-19 vaccines at the virtual 27th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Andorra, which handed over the Pro Tempore Secretariat to the Dominican Republic.
“If we really want, as the Ibero-American community, to overcome this situation, we cannot do it by ourselves. There cannot be imbalances in the fight against COVID-19,” said the Venezuelan high-ranking official as she expressed her satisfaction with the Ibero-American community’s shared concern over “the terrible inequality in the access to vaccines,” something the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
Vice-President Rodríguez pointed out that two countries of the community, Venezuela and Cuba, are victims of blockades and unilateral coercive measures, and recalled that resources belonging to the Venezuelan people have been seized within the Ibero-American community.
Therefore, she requested Portugal’s authorities to cooperate so that the South American nation can access its assets to address the pandemic “without any type of political conditions.”
“There cannot be double standards,” stressed Rodríguez, who explained that the International Monetary Fund has denied financing to Venezuela to face the sanitary crisis over political reasons.
Regarding the pandemic, the Venezuelan vice-president said it has deepened the world’s asymmetries and inequalities resulting from capitalism, as evidenced by the fact that the greatest havoc of COVID-19 has been caused in the cities congested by the system in a model of hostility towards the life and health of their population.
Rodríguez strongly replied to the statement delivered by Colombian President Iván Duque on Venezuelan migration. “Our country has hosted 6 million Colombians for 70 years of war in Colombia, and it has never attended an international forum scrounging over those migrants that we have welcomed with love and cared for with dedication.”
In this regard, she explained the Colombian president’s failure to guarantee peace to his people and eradicate drug crops.
“It’s incredible that amid the pandemic, Colombia, the world’s first coca producer, has increased [coca] production, a graver public health issue for the international community than the pandemic that disturbs the international financial system,” she warned.
Andorra Declaration
In a message to the Ibero-American Summit, the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, reiterated his deep concern as many low-income countries have not received a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while the richest countries are vaccinating their population.
“If this dangerous trend of vaccine nationalism and parallel deals continues, vaccination in developing countries could take years, delaying, even more, the world’s recovery,” warned Guterres, who also called for global unity and solidarity, an equitable distribution and for doubling the capacity to manufacture vaccines.
The 27th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government ended with the approval of a Final Declaration, the Andorra’s Commitment to Innovation for Sustainable Development, an action program and 16 special statements, adopted by consensus, on the right to health, especially to the universal access to COVID-19 vaccines, climate and the environment, foreign debt and financing.
Likewise, the 27th Ibero-American Summit approved the creation of the Ibero-American Epidemiological Observatory and the Ibero-American Institute of Indigenous Languages, in addition to other initiatives associated with the prevention and eradication of gender violence, global citizenship, and congenital Chagas disease (to avoid mother-to-child transmission of Chagas disease during pregnancy), among others.