Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

And it was all these platitudes about we're going to increase investment and economic engagement, right? But you compare that with now.

Now, the most recent Chinese strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean is manifested in the China CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

The China-CELAC Joint Action Plan.

And that Joint Action Plan has five pillars that focuses on political solidarity, development from the GDI, right? Civilization from the GCI, peace that reflects the GSI, and people to people, right? So you can see that expansion of strategic interest that has really developed over the past two decades.

Yeah, it's certainly a much more strategic approach from China.

President, 123 nations voted to affirm this fundamental truth that the transatlantic slave trade and chattel enslavement were the gravest crimes against humanity.

I stand with respect at this podium to thank every nation that voted for justice, and I'm deeply grateful to our brothers and sisters in the African Union, the CARICOM, CELAC, and our partners across the Global South.

Mr.

President, real repair demands structural transformation.

And because the U.N., as it worked as you've aptly pointed out in your beginning, it's become regional.

You're starting to see SCO, BRICS, even CELAC in South America and the Caribbean.

The Africans are coming together.

Why? They have no choice.

That was the first such meeting between those two men since the US passed Russian sanctions laws that will target India.

Jaishankar also attended numerous multilaterals, including some regional ones like Vizgrad, Europe, CELAC, that is the Latin American countries, European Union, FIPIC, which is Pacific countries.

In fact, all those regional organizations, except SAARC itself, South Asia, SAARC foreign ministers used to meet every year till about 2019 on the sidelines of the UNGA.

India also co-sponsored a new multilateral called Partnership for Multilateralism.

President, one hundred and twenty-three nations voted to affirm this fundamental truth that the transatlantic slave trade and chattel enslavement were the grievous crimes against humanity.

[audience applauding] I stand with respect at this pod-podium to thank every nation that voted for justice, and I'm deeply grateful to our brothers and sisters in the African Union, the CARICOM, CELAC, and our partners across the Global South.

That resolution was not a mere gesture.

It was adopted because the structural legacies of those historic crimes continue to fuel systematic racism, economic marginaliza-lization, and a global financial architecture that is weighted against Africa and people of African descent.

so Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and in the future, Bolivia.

We chair in CELAC.

CELAC is the 33 countries of the region, so all the Latin Americas, more the Caribbean.

And we chair G77, so the global South country in the United Nations.

We think that perhaps CELAC can take a role to try to facilitate dialogue, but we don't do anything because someone need to call us to try to work in this process.

Now, the point is between US and Cuba to try to find the solution.

The point is under pressure, I'm not convinced that we'll achieve what, who put the pressure and who receive the pressure will resolve the problem.

I think that is moving and is not clear.

Unfortunately, what that has meant is that within CARICOM, CARICOM of course being the Caribbean Community of Nations, within CARICOM, Trinidad and Tobago has broken ranks on some fundamental positions that CARICOM has taken over the years, one of which is that the Caribbean should be a zone of peace.

This is a position that was enunciated by CARICOM many, many decades ago and was also one of the positions adopted by CELAC, which is a community of Latin American Caribbean states, at a summit in Havana, interestingly, which Mrs. Poseidon herself attended in 2014 in a previous go-around as prime minister and which she signed on to.

So she rejected the position that the Caribbean is a zone of peace.

Part of that rejection was manifest in support for the so-called boat strikes, or the kinetic strikes, a horrible term, which really are extrajudicial killings carried out by the U.S. military on people on small boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, which really are extrajudicial killings, which is murder, because there'd be no evidence provided that these people were involved in illegal activities they were they also been arrested um and any evidence of wrongdoing um taken with them before the court a court of law and let them be tried and found guilty and then let them do the time if they were guilty but you can't just kill people by military strikes in that way that's murder but she supported that in fact after the first boat strike she said kill them all violently And another manifestation of breaking ranks with CARICOM was on the issue of Cuba, where CARICOM historically has taken a position in support of Cuba's right to self-determination and also in support of the UN vote, the UN vote which says that the US should end the blockade against Cuba.