On 15-17 September delegations from 135 nations met in Havana for the G77+China summit on ‘Science, technology and innovation’. Cuba has acted as chair of the group after being elected for the first time at the UN in 2022. Founded in 1964 by 77 nations as part of the ‘Non-aligned movement’, today the expanded G77+China represents 80% of global population and two-thirds of UN member states. Most are poorer nations facing the brunt of global debt and poverty. China engages with the organisation’s structures but remains a non-member. The group counterbalances international organisations dominated by Western imperialist powers. It contains contradictory interests, from the anti-imperialist voices of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the oil rich gulf monarchies and rising capitalist powers like India.
As host, Cuban President Diaz-Canel gave a blistering speech expressing the rising opposition to Western imperialism: ‘The North has adapted the world to suit its interests, at everyone else’s expense, the moment has arrived for the South to change the rules of the game. With the rights we – the vast majority of the Group of 77 members – acquire by being the primary victims of the world’s present multidimensional crisis; of the cyclical imbalances in international trade and finance; of the abusive, unequal exchange; of the science, technology and knowledge gap; of the danger stemming from progressive destruction and exhaustion of the natural resources on which life on earth depends, we demand realisation now of the overdue democratisation of the system of international relations.
‘Many of our nations are labelled poor whereas they should properly be referred to as pauperised... The creation and dissemination of advanced digital production technologies worldwide remain concentrated... Far from becoming tools for closing the development gap and helping overcome the injustices that overshadow mankind’s very future, they tend to be weaponised for use in widening the gap, sapping the will of many of our governments and protecting the system of exploitation and plunder that for centuries fed the wealth of the old colonial powers and condemned our nations to a subordinate role.
‘In 2022, 25 developing nations had to devote more than one-fifth of their total income to servicing public external debt, which is tantamount to a new form of slavery... The International Monetary Fund’s financial support for the least developed countries and other low-income countries, from 2020 to late November 2022, was no more than what the Coca Cola Company has spent on advertising its brand alone in the last eight years... An international financial architecture that perpetuates such disparities and forces the South to tie up financial resources and go into debt to protect itself from the instability that the system itself generates; that enlarges the pockets of the rich at the expense of the reserves of the poorest 80% is, without a doubt, an architecture that is inimical to the progress of our nations. It must be demolished if we really want to work for the development of the great mass of nations gathered here.’
Chairing the G77+China has been extremely significant for Cuba, allowing Diaz-Canel to raise the call to end the US blockade and all unilateral coercive measures in international forums.
Viva Cuba! End the blockade!
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 296 October/November 2023