Héctor Rodríguez: We must return to the ideas of full independence and unity proposed by Simón Bolívar

Published at: 23/06/2026 10:44 AM

Latin America today needs to resume the ideas of full independence and unity proposed by Simon Bolivar, 200 years ago, at the Panamanian Amphictyonic Congress, said the sectoral vice-president for Social and Territorial Socialism, Héctor Rodríguez, during the closing of the International Colloquium Patria es América, in Caracas.

According to a press release, Rodríguez assured that the Amphictyonic Congress is “an unfinished project of Bolivar” that is of great relevance in the current historical and geopolitical conjuncture, in which the world is in a dispute over the center of economic, technological and military power.

In this context, Rodríguez recalled the Thucydides Dilemma, a geopolitical theory that posits that when an emerging power threatens to displace a dominant hegemonic power, the most likely outcome is a war between the two.

“Will we be able to unite and let it not be a power that dominates us and that we achieve a multipolar world?” , he asked.

The sector vice-president warned that “there are great geopolitical pressures to prevent this from being achieved” and exemplified with the case of Venezuela, which “has been subjected to gigantic pressure” to “raise its voice” in favor of Latin American unity with the political project initiated by Hugo Chávez in 1999.

“They have imposed an absolute siege on Venezuela and since I didn't highlight them, they bombed (...) Today we have to resist, to grow in difficulties,” he said.

The Minister of Education also illustrated that this independence “today is not defended with a gun”, but “with a battle of ideas” because “we are in a war of algorithms”. So, he added, in this circumstance, the main thing is to know “how capable” the countries of the region are to be politically united.

From June 19 to 22, the International Colloquium Patria es América brought together prominent historians, intellectuals and defenders of the popular sovereignty of the country and of 12 Latin American nations, with the purpose of “vindicating the original doctrines of continental unity and co-development”.

Mazo News Team