Evo Morales: I want to declare myself as a marxist and communist, let's see if the OAS expels me

April 16, 2009 – During his intervention at the VII ALBA Summit, Bolivian president Evo Morales recalled the 1962 documents of the Organisation of American States (OAS) that resulted in Cuba being expelled from the organization, and outlined the importance of reflecting over the motives of that expulsion.

The resolution indicates that the adherence of any member country to Marxism-Leninism, and the association of any member government of the organization with the communist bloc, broke the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere. Therefore, given that the government of Cuba identified itself as Marxist Leninist, it was incompatible with the purpose of the OAS and was therefore excluded from participating.

“Cuba was expelled for being Leninist, Marxist, communist. I want to say to the members of the OAS, here, I want to declare myself Marxist, Leninist, communist, socialist and now let them expel me, I want them to expel me from the OAS, it is unbelievable that for being Marxist Leninist one can be expelled from the OAS” exclaimed Morales.

He made reference to the recent declarations made by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who said that there is no democracy in Cuba. He recalled that once when he was in the US, he found out that deputies who do not win more than 50% of the votes can not be sworn in and the vote has to occur again.

“The US has no right or authority to speak of democracy, because they are the ones that foster coups, military coups, just as they are now arming a civic coup in Bolivia”

He highlighted the fact that on the other hand in Cuba they exercise full democracy, where bribes or million dollar campaigns do not exist.

ALBA council on human rights

Morales proposed the creation of an ALBA Council for Human Rights. His proposal parts from the position that there exists many institutions that emit reports on human rights and that the only thing they do is report on anti-imperialist government. “No matter what good things we do, they never recognize them, they do not take into consideration that we are in a process of liberation of deep transformation” affirmed Morales.

He stated that these international human rights institutions only condemn governments of liberation. Therefore, in this framework, he proposed the creation of an ALBA Council for Human Rights, to be able to say the truth on human rights.

He pointed out that the general objective should be to investigate and denounce political, military and cultural interference, carry out investigations on policies that go against our countries, establish a permanent system of monitoring media attacks, exchange of information amongst countries that make up the council to evaluate systematic violations of human rights, promote the exercising of human rights especially in regards to sovereignty and self-determination of the member countries.

According to his proposal, the council would be made up of representatives of all the member countries, representatives of social movements, human rights experts and representatives of any non-member country that wanted to be part of the council.

Evo Morales gave thanks for all the international solidarity he received during his recent struggle for the approval of an electoral law in Bolivia and expressed his enormous satisfaction of being there as part of the anti-imperialist struggle, which he indicated is the struggle of our peoples.

He highlighted the creation of the Sucre, as another form of thinking of solutions to the financial crisis. He affirmed that the relationship which Bolivia has with the IMF and World Bank now is different, given all the conditions they have put on his nation.

Translated from Aporrea