The meeting took place in Havana, capital of Cuba, which has also served as the capital city for the peace agreements between Colombia and the insurgent forces of said country.

The facilitator of Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC), Danilo Urrea, made reference to the environmental discussion and its role in the agendas for change in the continent. “We depart from the premise of environmental, social, economic and gender justice” and that is why the anticapitalist struggle is part of an alliance process with the aim to achieve “system change”.

The 24th Meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum gathered organizations such as the Latin American Coordination of Countryside Organizations (CLOC-VC), the Continental Day in Defense of Democracy and against Neoliberalism, the World March of Women, the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas and ATALC itself.

After 100 days of political imprisonment, former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva, founder of the Workers Party of Brazil, sent a message to the participants of the FSP.

He thanked for the solidarity expressed by social forces and leftist actors with him and other people who are politically persecuted in the continent. Lula founded, together with Fidel Castro, the Sao Paulo Forum at the beginning of the 90s.

This exchange space has now become the longest lasting space for leftist articulation in the region. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel participated in the event on Tuesday 17.