Madrid Spain.- This Monday the XV Atlantic Forum “Iberoamerica: Freedom and Democracy” took place, which was attended by the President of Colombia Iván Duque, the Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, and the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
During the event, organized by the International Foundation for Liberty and held at the Casa de América Auditorium in Madrid, current issues related to the defense of freedom, the free market, democracy and the rule of law in Ibero-America were discussed.
Vargas Llosa, president of the International Foundation for Freedom, opened the forum by referring to the recent election of Gustavo Petro as president of Colombia.
“A question mark is opened regarding the future of Colombia. Hopefully Colombia remains within the strict legality that has characterized the history of that country”, said the Peruvian writer.
During the first panel, “New threats to Ibero-America,” the speakers referred to the situation in countries where human rights and democracy are violated, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and “where governments are basically populist and lousy managers of Condition”.
The second panel, dedicated to authoritarianism and populism, was attended by the MEP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo.
“We have to build strong democratic alternatives to all the populist and authoritarian movements that are advancing in the region. It is not so much their merits as our demerits that allow dictatorships and autocratic regimes to advance,” he told CubaNet Alvarez de Toledo.
“We Democrats have to organize ourselves, defend our ideas, organize ourselves politically and have representatives; take the initiative, take action, without regrets, but with more determination than ever”, highlighted the MEP.
Panelist Dionisio Gutiérrez, businessman and President of the Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo, in statements to this outlet, referred to the Cuban dictatorship “as the great stain on Latin America, which has served as a seed to promote dictatorships on the continent.”
“That a dictatorship like the one in Cuba continues to exist is a crime for Latin America,” added Gutiérrez.
A fundamental moment of the meeting was the delivery of the Freedom Award granted by the International Foundation for Freedom to the president of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Mario Vargas Llosa, when presenting the award, stated: “Madrid is organized thanks to you. We give you this award and we are absolutely sure that you will take us in the right direction”.
During the award ceremony, he recalled that the award had been given to a group of journalists from Cuba and Venezuela who were imprisoned “for being honest, for defending the same things that we defend.”
The closing of the event was in charge of Colombian President Iván Duque, who via zoom assured that at the end of his mandate he will continue to defend freedoms in Latin America.
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