Cuban President defends southern countries' right to development

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday urged the Group of 77 and China (G77+China) to fight for the right to development as a way to participate in the scientific-technical revolution of the world under conditions of equality.

At the opening of the bloc's summit, which is taking place on Friday and Saturday at Havana's International Conference Center, the President noted that this event is taking place at a time when humanity has reached a scientific-technical potential that was unimaginable a couple of decades ago.

According to Díaz-Canel, this implies an extraordinary capacity to generate wealth and well-being that, under conditions of greater equality, equity and justice, could ensure decent, comfortable and sustainable living standards for almost all the inhabitants of the planet.

In that regard, we are facing the greatest scientific-technical revolution that humanity has known, with technological progress that has allowed us to connect the world and endowed the human race with unsuspected capabilities to improve their living conditions, he added.

However, these possibilities are not available to everyone, since, far from becoming tools to close the development gap, they tend to become weapons to deepen these differences and protect the system of exploitation and plunder that for several centuries has fueled the wealth of the former colonial powers, he regretted.

This explains why, in the midst of the most colossal scientific-technical development of all time, the world has gone back three decades in terms of reducing extreme poverty and has recorded levels of hunger not seen since 2005; and that in the south, more than 84 million children remain out of school and more than 660 million people lack electricity, he noted.

We have the duty to try to change the rules of the game and we will only achieve it if we mobilize joint actions, the President of Cuba said before the more than 100 delegations that are participating in the G77+China Summit, including dozens of heads of State and Government.

The Cuban President questioned the functioning of the current international economic order and pointed out that the South seems destined to live off the crumbs that the current system has reserved for it.

Let us remember that many of the unique nations represented in the G77+China have written impressive pages of creativity and heroism in the history of humanity, before colonization and plunder impoverished the destinies of a part of them, he said.

Let us recover that fighting spirit, traditional knowledge, creative thinking and collective wisdom, added Díaz-Canel, who called to fight for the right to development, 'which is also the right to exist as a species.'

'Only in this way will we be in a position to participate in the scientific-technical revolution on an equal footing. Only in this way will we be able to occupy the place that belongs to us in this world where they try to relegate us to the status of meek contributors of wealth for minorities,' he considered.