LATIN AMERICA is at the heart of the rise of the global South, a packed Adelante conference in central London heard on Saturday.

Hundreds of activists at the annual Latin American conference, held at the National Education Union’s London HQ, took part in 21 workshops, two keynote plenary sessions and heard some 70 speakers celebrate the role that progressives are playing in placing Latin America at the heart of global resistance to imperialism.

Vijay Prashad, the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, said: "While the global North loses economic power and increases militarisation, the global South is growing economically and demanding independence. 

"Latin America is at the heart of this process."

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko highlighted Cuba’s inspirational role in proving “every day that another world is possible” and pointed to its hosting of last year’s G77+China summit, in which President Miguel Diaz-Canel tasked developing countries with democratising international relations.

CND general secretary Kate Hudson said that “where Britain and the US export bombs, Cuba exports doctors.”

Maria Cecilia Toro, counsellor from the Venezuelan embassy, outlined the US-led attempts to paralyse the country, which have led to at least $642 billion (£505bn) being lost from the economy since 2015.

“We couldn’t move forward without solidarity,” she said.

Former NEU general secretary Kevin Courtney, who now chairs the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, introduced the closing plenary, which included Cuban ambassador Barbara Montalvo, Labour MP Grahame Morris, Labour NEC member Jess Barnard, NEU president Emma Rose and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Ms Barnard blasted current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer for his “record of despair.”

She said Labour had become “the sibling to US hegemony” and that it needed to remember “it’s supposed to be the voice of working people in Parliament and not the arm of the US.”

Making her final speech to the conference as she completes her tour of duty as ambassador to Britain, Ms Montalvo said: “To be on the side of Cuba is to be on the side of truth and justice.”

She said her country must be removed from the US’s arbitrary list of so-called state sponsors of terrorism.

Ms Montalvo concluded by saying goodbye to delegates “not as an ambassador but as a revolutionary woman,” urging the delegates to “never surrender.”

In a rousing close to the conference, Islington North MP Mr Corbyn urged progressive movements everywhere to take up the call for social justice, reminding delegates that hope is the key to winning alongside popular organisation.