• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 05 / 20 / 2011

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The 17th Sao Paulo Forum enters its second day of sessions Thursday, an event aimed at analyzing the common problems of Latin American and Caribbean nations in 13 working committees.

The forum brings together 257 representatives from 47 leftist political parties and progressive organizations from 32 Latin American, Caribbean, European, and Asian nations.

The forum was first held in 1990 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, out of the need to find an alternative to the neoliberal model promoted by the United States.

The 17th forum coincides with the 116th anniversary of the birth of Augusto Cesar Sandino and the 50th anniversary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Both events were highlighted by six speakers at the Wednesday evening opening ceremony, presided by FSLN general secretary and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Nobel Prize laureate and Guatemalan presidential candidate Rigoberta Menchu was one of the six speakers at the opening ceremony, as was the vice president of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Manh Hung, who spoke on behalf of European and Asian organizations.

Honduran constitutional President Manuel Zelaya; the president of the Cuban Parliament and member of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party Central Committee, Ricardo Alarcon, and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, who read a message from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for the FSLN anniversary, followed with their speeches.

Daniel Ortega was the last one to make a speech, stressing the importance of remaining united in fighting the hegemony of imperialism and global capitalism over the Latin American peoples.

Source: cubasi.com