During the meeting, the vice president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with Peoples (ICAP), Noemi Rabaza, called for strengthening international solidarity with the island in the face of the intensification of the US blockade.

In her speech, Rabaza emphasized that the solidarity vocation of Cuba is a founding value of the nation, born and strengthened in the struggles for independence of Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Fidel (Castro) considered that being an internationalist is to pay our own debt to humanity,” he said.

The vice president of ICAP recalled that the historic leader understood very early on that the liberation of Cuba was not an isolated project and that the dignity of the homeland was inextricably linked to the dignity of all peoples of the world.

“Solidarity is the most powerful moral weapon we have against injustice,” she emphasized.

Before delegates from about 63 countries, Rabaza denounced the impact of the US blockade on the daily life of Cubans.

“The silent genocide that has been undertaken against Cuba causes immense damage and terrible limitations.

The infant mortality rate rose from 4.0 to 9.9 per thousand live births, showing that Cuba is living in a war without bombs,” she said.

The leader of ICAP called for solidarity movements to take on four strategic tasks outlined by President Diaz-Canel: spreading the truth about Cuba, articulating effective networks, strengthening solidarity with new sectors and promoting solidarity cooperation.

“Cuba is not a threat. We are a noble people who save lives where others destroy, who send doctors and teachers to where others send bombs,’ she emphasized.

The official concluded its intervention with a message of resistance: “Cuba continues to resist, heroically and creatively, in the face of all this.”

abo/mem/mks