• Submitted by: Juana
• Local
• international
• Politics and Government
• 04 / 26 / 2017

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Representatives from Cuba and 25 countries will demand an end to military bases in the world as part of the 5th International Seminar on Peace and for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases.
The forum will be held from May 4th to the 6th in the eastern province of Guantanamo where the US has the oldest military base in the world installed in Cuban territory since 1903 and where the US imposed a torture center in the illegally occupied territory.
Silvio Platero Irola, president of the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples (MovPaz) gave the press details of the program, which will gather over 200 representatives from all continents.
According to Platero, this is the perfect moment to unite forces and voices against the proliferation of the militarization of the regions with high technology, intervention and deployment.
According to statistics offered by Platero, there are currently one thousand installations of its type in the world, 852 managed by the US, country that together with Canada have most number of participants to the event.
The President of MovPaz added that the representatives will discuss aspects related with the military occupation in Europe, Asia, Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean, region where there are 76 military bases.
Cultural activities and visits to neighborhoods will also take place in addition to an exhibition of audiovisual materials among them “Todo Guantanamo es Nuestro” (All of Guantanamo is Ours) that speaks on the opposition of the Cuban people and government to the illegally occupied US military base in that eastern region.
The seminar gathers important international figures among them Brazilian Maria Do Socorro Gomes, President of the World Peace Council and Nicaraguan deputy to the Central American Parliament, Daniel Ortega Reyes.
Platero also mentioned that the closing of the event will be held in the municipality of Caimanera, where the Final Declaration will be presented meters away from the US military base in Guantanamo.
He program also includes a visit on May 7th to Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the city of Santiago de Cuba to pay tribute to the leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro before the monument that holds his aches.
The Seminar is sponsored by the World Peace Council,  MovPaz, the Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), with the support of the Organization in Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Reflection Center.