Brazil highlights its relations
 with Cuba

Laura Bécquer Paseiro

BRAZILIAN President Dilma Rousseff began the second day of her official visit to Cuba by honoring José Martí, Cuba’s national hero. Accompanied by Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Rogelio Sierra, Rousseff placed a wreath at the foot of the monument in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución.

Speaking to the press, she emphasized that cooperation in various spheres, and specifically in the economic one, is the best way in which Brazil can combat the blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States.

She condemned the blockade policy, "which does not generate any benefits," and stated that her government is committed to helping the economic updating process in which Cuba is immersed.

Rousseff commented on Brazilian participation in a number of Cuban initiatives through various funding programs which include technical equipment for food production.

The visiting President also referred to the Brazilian contribution to construction works in the port of Mariel in western Cuba, a cooperation project which she considers strategic.

She described the project as a necessary logistical system for the export of Cuban goods, which will contribute to national economic development, placing these actions in the context of Brazil’s cooperation policy to aid development processes in Cuba.

She added that her obligation as President is to assume and establish this position, which promotes and demonstrates Brazil’s growing and recognized economic power.

Rousseff emphasized Brazil’s commitment to the Latin American and Caribbean region, one in which it is essential – more than in other latitudes – to maintain a policy of cooperation that responds to shared interests. In this context, she described the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as one of the most important spaces in the region. Asked about the issue of human rights, Rousseff stated that it should be addressed from a multilateral perspective. "We are going to begin to talk about human rights in Brazil, we are going to talk about human rights in the United States, in relation to Guantánamo (in reference to the prison on the illegally occupied naval base). We are going to talk about human rights everywhere," she commented.

She affirmed that the world needs to commit in a general sense, that human rights should not be turned into a political weapon. The world needs to be convinced that all countries should take responsibility in this context.

Dilma Rousseff’s first official visit to Cuba is another demonstration of the sisterhood between the two countries, in which advances in cooperation have been confirmed in the context of greater Latin American and Caribbean integration.