This meeting is the meeting of unity because it represents the strength of the left, of the social and popular movements and progressive intellectuals and progressive intellectuals of our continent. (Photo:PL)

Caracas, November 19 (RHC)-- With a call to strengthen unity, the meeting of the Working Group of the Sao Paulo Forum began Friday in Venezuela, which will be held for two days with the attendance of 60 delegates from 25 countries.

The Vice President for International Affairs of the United Socialist Party (PSUV), Adán Chávez, welcomed the guests from Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Europe and Asia, and highlighted the importance of union and dialogue to seek unity.  He recalled Commander Hugo Chávez in the call he made on December 8, 2012, in what is known here and in the world as his last proclamation, in which he expressed: "unity, struggle, battle and victory".

Adan Chavez, who also serves as Venezuela's ambassador to Cuba, said that in the Sao Paulo Forum and its Expanded Working Group are the samples and achievements of the organization in its last five years, in which it showed how to work together, with a real strategic plan to move forward united.

The executive secretary of the political body, Monica Valente, highlighted the symbolism of holding the meeting at the International University of Communications, a dream of achieving this space for reflection, learning and promoting -as Fidel Castro would say- the battle of ideas, she said.  She said that the meeting will be for reflection, definition and approach for 2023, when we close a year of "hard battles" lived in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Valente mentioned the important electoral victories achieved in the last period in countries such as Colombia and Brazil, and again quoted the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution when he said that the "difficult begins now", although it has not been easy to get here for the parties, social and popular movements, he added.

The first vice-president of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, proposed to resume the sectorial meetings of the Forum in Caracas as from 2023, in which the faces, communicators, women, youth, workers, native peoples and afro-descendant movements can be seen.

He pointed out that a country alone is of no use, although Cuba had to be alone for many years, until nations like Venezuela and Nicaragua emerged, and remarked that in the case of the Bolivarian Republic, the enemies will not be able to do it "by hook or by crook".

In declarations to Prensa Latina, the vice chief and coordinator of the International Relations Department of the Communist Party of Cuba, Ángel Arzuaga, said that holding this Forum in Caracas is a sincere act of solidarity with Venezuela, its legitimate president Nicolás Maduro and the heroic Bolivarian people.

Arzuaga emphasized that this meeting is one of unity because it represents the strength of the left, of the social and popular movements and progressive intellectuals of our continent.

This meeting, which closes Saturday with a final declaration, will be attended by nations such as El Salvador, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Palestine, United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, among others.