Brasília, November 24, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Latin America and the Caribbean contain over 150 million blacks and Afro-descendants. In Brazil alone, Afro-descendants total around 79 million people. The common traits among them are discrimination and unequal conditions in access to jobs, health, education, and social life.

This denunciation is part of the Letter from Brasília, approved on Sunday (23) at the end of the I Encounter of Black Legislators from the Americas and the Caribbean. For three days, legislators from various countries in the region discussed public policies for blacks and Afro-descendants. According to the president of the Parliamentary Front in Defense of Racial Equality, Deputy Luiz Alberto (PT-BA), the meeting served to outline a diagnosis of the situation.

The document that was approved unites Latin America and the Caribbean in a commitment to fight in defense of racial equality and for the welfare and inclusion of communities of Afro-descendants. The commitment includes joint efforts for "the demands repressed by centuries of exploitation and material disintegration to become part of the political agenda of the countries participating in the event." (DAS)