Background: the proclamation that made Latin America and the Caribbean a Zone of Peace

Background

In the general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly session, Cuba opposed any militarisation of Latin America and the Caribbean. To support that stand it recalled a regional proclamation of 2014 that declared the whole region a Zone of Peace. Cuba used it to argue that force and intervention have already been renounced by the region's own governments. The same speech rejected the Monroe Doctrine, the nineteenth-century United States policy that treated the Americas as its sphere of influence. Cuba also linked its position to solidarity with Small Island Developing States and to calls for reparations for colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. For aspirants the fact worth carrying is the year of the Zone of Peace proclamation and what it covers. It is a standard match-the-pair item in international relations questions.