Viant emphasized that such a situation threatens freedom of trade, the principles of State sovereignty, and the implementation of the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, approved in Havana in January 2014.

The ambassador also added that negative precedents are being set with a direct impact on global stability and the danger of a conflagration that must be avoided.

At a commemorative event for the 67th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the 100th birthday of its historic leader Fidel Castro, and the 50th anniversary of Kaysone Phomvihane’s trip to Havana, the diplomat underscored that peace is essential to advance cooperation and integration, and boost the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

She also noted that, domestically, “the Cuban people have suffered and confronted the effects of a devastating US economic blockade of more than 60 years, exacerbated by financial and energy persecution, and a resurgence of subversive and multidimensional warfare.”

The ambassador alluded, elsewhere in her speech, to the progress in relations between the Parties, Governments, Parliaments, and peoples of Cuba and Laos, as well as in cooperation in multilateral and bilateral spheres in sectors such as education, sports, health, agriculture, and scientific research, among others.

Viant said that the visit of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President Miguel Diaz-Canel to Laos reaffirmed the strategic and fraternal alliance with this country and ratified the commitment to expanding economic, political, and cultural collaboration, along with the bonds of solidarity between the two nations united by decades of shared challenges and mutual support.

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