Cuban academic Fidel Castro Smirnov today called in Brazil for building a multipolar world based on social justice, solidarity and human development.

Speaking at the Regional Summit of the Assembly of the Peoples of the World in Latin America, in the city of Bahia, he argued that the emergence of new centres of power will not by itself guarantee a fairer order if it is not accompanied by a profound transformation of the values governing international relations.

«If the multipolar world turns out to be simply a space where more powers are competing for the same objectives – growth as the only metric and profit as the only compass – then we will have changed who gives orders without changing anything that matters,» stated a full member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba.

According to the researcher, Latin America is called upon to play a singular role in building this new world order, due to its natural resources, geopolitical weight, historical experience and alternative conceptions of development.

«Our role is civilisational,» stressed Castro Smirnov, who emphasised that this region can contribute a vision based on community, solidarity and an understanding of progress that places the human being above the market.

On the other hand, the scientist questioned the actions of the United States and other Western powers in the face of ongoing geopolitical changes.

«Declining empires do not retreat gracefully,» he pointed out, before denouncing what he considered practices of coercion against governments and nations seeking to act outside traditional power structures.

He also criticised the persistence of unilateral coercive measures against Cuba and denounced the impunity with which, he claimed, its people are punished through the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington.

Referring to the island’s resistance, he used an analogy from nuclear physics to point out that the promoters of the siege have for decades bet on the collapse of the Cuban revolutionary project.

«They have been waiting for over 67 years for us to fracture. However,» he emphasised, «we Cubans are still standing.»

He also highlighted the advances achieved by Cuban science despite the economic limitations arising from US sanctions, and mentioned the development of five homegrown vaccines against Covid-19, innovative cancer treatments and new biotechnological products.

«While they threaten us, blockade us and condemn us, our scientists create life,» he stressed.

Castro Smirnov attributed these results to a social conception of health and scientific research promoted since the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

In that regard, he recalled an idea expressed by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro (1926-2016), and said that in the year of his centenary, the historic leader calls for measuring the present with the same yardstick with which he measured his own era.

He stated that in our hands begins the horizon of social transformation in which true development is not measured by what is accumulated, but by what is not denied to anyone.

He also recalled the warning issued by Fidel Castro at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit about the environmental risks facing humanity, and stressed that current challenges demand an international reordering sustained by new values.

Also attending the aforementioned event for Cuba are the coordinator of the World Federation of Trade Unions for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ernesto Freire, and its ambassador in Brazil, Víctor Cairo.