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The First Caribbean Peace Conference ended with a declaration condemning “the neo-liberal counter-offensive of imperialism,” which is “impacting Caribbean societies largely through the installation of retrograde capitalist forces.”
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Held in Barbados from Oct. 6-7, the conference was attended by the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, the Cuban Movement for Peace and People’s Sovereignty, the Jamaica Peace Council, the Guyana Peace Council, and the Caribbean Chapter of the International Network In Defense of Humanity, as well as representatives from Barbados, Cuba, Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and the U.S. Peace Council.
The conference added that the imperialist offensive “opened the countries to private sector dominance and the reversal of the social gains in health, education, public housing and transportation, adversely impacting the quality of life of the Caribbean working people.”
The threat of climate change was also discussed by the conference which they said is damaging the ecosystem of Caribbean nations as well as the regional economy, saying that it “increases the risk of natural disasters that can wipe out Caribbean economies by wreaking havoc on infrastructure and by causing significant loss of life.”
This was recently evidenced by the devastating hurricane season that has caused deaths, displacement and billions of dollars worth of damage to Caribbean nations. Delegates at the conference described the U.S. as the most eco-unfriendly nation on the planet and condemned the U.S. administration's denial of climate change as a human-made phenomenon.
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Alongside climate change, the conference decried the presence of foreign military bases in the Caribbean region and labeled them as a serious impediment to peace and stability in the region. It pledged to “resolutely join in the actions of the international campaign against foreign military bases and for a world of peace without nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons.”
The conference noted the degenerative influence of foreign media penetration in the Caribbean region saying that “the phenomenon of imported values eclipsing our local values of respect and human decency, and with movies and films perpetuating greed, violence, opulence and selfishness, then the rise in senseless killings and gang warfare, presents itself as a direct threat to our Caribbean civilization.”
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