The Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Sacha Llorenti, warned that multilateralism is under vicious attacks from the right wing.
In an interview with Prensa Latina news agency, the ALBA-TCP executive secretary said “it is not only in crisis, but under attack from many points of view, because the Donald Trump’s government developed a clear strategy to dismantle multilateral organizations.”
In this regard, he mentioned how Washington turned his back on the Paris Agreement and various United Nations bodies, including the Commission on Human Rights, and cut off funding for specific programs such as health, and aid to the Palestinian people.
Llorenti warned that even though Trump is no longer in office, he fueled an extreme right-wing ideology in the world, which he described as a great concern.
“The world is facing common global threats that no country on its own can address. We have seen it clearly with the pandemic and other issues such as climate change, the financial crisis, and the nuclear threat, aggravated during the Trump administration, as well as the impact of technologies and other issues that we must face together,” said Llorenti.
According to the ALBA-TCP executive secretary, the only prevailing multilateral body is the United Nations, where common rules apply based on international law and are accepted by its member countries.
Nevertheless, he explained that it has taken many steps backwards in terms of unity and joint work among countries since 1945, but he highlighted the ALBA-TCP as the only regional organization that developed a common strategy to face the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regarding a possible change of course by the U.S. administration, Llorenti stressed that “the Democrat governments in the United States have not been too friendly, either, nor have they been that interested in multilateralism.”
The ALBA-TCP executive secretary recalled that the blockade imposed by the White House on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua is a violation of international law and the UN Charter, and added that if the new U.S. administration abide by the laws and principles of the UN, it will be a step forward.
In the interview, Llorenti stressed the role of nations like Cuba and Venezuela amid a sanitary crisis where inequalities and confrontations for supremacy, control of vaccines and medicines have exposed the essence of the most vicious neoliberalism.
“Cuba plays a vital role in the fight against COVID-19 in the world, and I do not use that expression lightly. Cubans do not only save lives, they also have vaccine candidates thanks to their scientific and technological developments, and they will produce them for their population and to help those countries most in need,” said Llorenti.
In the face of the global panorama amid the pandemic, we can see the Cubans’ solidarity and brotherhood. The map of the world is marked by a large deployment of their doctors, and it tells a lot about the moral stature, ethics and humanism of their Revolution, the legacy of Fidel Castro and the ALBA-TCP principles.
Llorenti said Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are the countries that best handle the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, and urged the rest of the countries to learn from the successful experience of these countries in their fight against novel coronavirus.
“If we compare their results to other countries with similar population and size in the region, we can see a huge difference, even though the mass media, due to political reasons, do not highlight their success,” he said.
The ALBA-TCP executive secretary pointed out that it is impossible to deny it, because people are not dying on the streets in those nations due to lack of healthcare and medicines.