Venezuelan Vice President Closes 4th Conference of African Descendants

African and Latin American leaders present at the summit in Venezuela to build bridges between the two continents. Both Africa and Latin America share a common history, heritage as well as contemporary situation., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Havana. June 23, 2011

Venezuelan Vice President closes
4th Conference of African Descendants

Participants to ask CELAC to recognize their contribution to nationality

CARACAS.—Vice President Elías Jaua made a call this Wednesday to break the structural conditions which generate exclusion and racial discrimination.

Jaua made this exhortation during the closing session of the 4th Conference of African Descendants and Revolutionary Transformations at the Alba Caracas Hotel, with the participation of approximately 600 delegates from the region and the African continent.

"We have to become more profound every day and accompany President Chávez, pushing time and time again until we effectively break the structural conditions which generate exclusion, which generate discrimination among our people," he said.

The Vice President highlighted the need to consolidate a broad-based popular force which will make possible, within the next decade, "the definitive construction of a society which is a space for everyone. That society has to be socialism."

The meeting approved a final statement which proposes that the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) recognize the contributions of Africans and their descendants "to the constitution of the nationality of our homelands and includes us in plans to respond to social needs," Aristóbulo Istúriz, first vice president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, noted.

The legislator recalled that the conference was organized in the context of the International Year for Peoples of African Descent and the Bicentenary of Venezuelan independence.

"Today, we reaffirm our proposal for the Decade of African Descendants, instead of one year. Moreover, our African-Venezuelan organizations are making a commitment to fight on the side of those who wish to conclude the independence process under the leadership of Hugo Chávez Frías, which implies our joining the Polo Patriótico," he stated. (AVN)

Translated by Granma International