MIAMI, United States. – The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, asked the countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) to “unequivocally condemn the authoritarian regimes in the region”, among which he cited Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Blinken spoke this Thursday at one of the sessions of the LII General Assembly of the OAS, which is being held in Lima, Peru.
Specifically, Blinken attacked Cuba for “the hundreds of people arrested” after the anti-government protests of July 2021 who remain in prison only for “asking for their human rights to be respected.”
Regarding Nicaragua, he said that Daniel Ortega’s regime violates the OAS democratic charter by “arbitrarily arresting the opposition, repressing protests and committing flagrant electoral fraud.”
Likewise, he accused the Nicolás Maduro regime of having caused a “humanitarian catastrophe” due to the departure of 6 million people from the country. He also asked all countries to join the demand for free elections in Venezuela in 2024.
In his speech, the US secretary also lamented that there are more and more anti-democratic leaders in the region and called for setting aside ideologies to defend democracy, according to the report of the news agency EFE.
“We are seeing more and more leaders who undertake anti-democratic measures under the false justification that they have popular support,” he said without mentioning any names.
However, he used the example of rulers who change laws to extend their mandate and harass the judiciary.
In that sense, Blinken assured that his country would work with its partners to denounce these abuses. “I want to be very clear: it’s not about choosing sides between left and right or progressive and conservative, it’s about committing to democracy ahead of ideologies and parties,” he said.
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