HAVANA, Cuba. – These days a new Summit Conference of the nations that make up the BRICS group is meeting in the Russian city of Kazan, that conglomerate of nations from the so-called “Global South” that are committed to making their way in the complex framework of international relations.
The Castro regime, especially in the person of the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, had expressed great interest in participating in that event at the highest level. However, in the end the island’s delegation to the event It is headed by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrillagiven the impossibility of Díaz-Canel leaving the country – man, what less could he do! – in the middle of the severe energy crisis that crosses Cuba.
But, be it one way or another, what stands out is the great motivation of the Castro regime to belong – in this case in the category of associate – to this group of nations, which has the great ally of the Cuban leadership, the Russian president. Vladimir Putin, the main protagonist of this Kazan conclave.
This approach of the regime to the BRICS is similar to Havana’s efforts to be accepted as an observer member of the Eurasian Economic Union, that type of economic integration formed by Russia and several of the nations that made up the extinct Soviet Union. In both cases, the Castro regime’s desire to obtain at all costs some type of aid that can mitigate the desperate economic situation that the Caribbean nation is going through is evident.
However, reality seems to indicate that Cuba will achieve very little, from an economic point of view, by approaching any of these groups of nations. Because for the full insertion of a country into a certain economic integration mechanism, that country must have, at least, some product or group of products that can be exported and that are of interest to the rest of the nations of the aforementioned integration mechanism, as was the case. case of the Island when it belonged to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME). The opposite would be the role of a beggar, waiting for some crumb to come from some generous pocket.
And that role of beggar is what corresponds to Cuba by placing itself in the shadow of any economic integration mechanism. Without any export sector that can show its face for the country’s honor, it would only invoke the pity of the rest of its counterparts in the face of the “intensified blockade” of the United States.
Ah, stop in the case of the BRICS, beyond the economic, we have the geopolitical element that arouses the interest of Castroism. If we take a look at the founding members of the BRICS (Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa) we notice that they are nations of undoubted economic weight in the international arena, but – and above all – with not very good relations with the West. Of course, we are referring to Lula’s Brazil, not Bolsonaro’s.
A second block of nations that made up the BRICS (Iran, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are also nations not closely identified with the Western world.
In that sense, the block of countries that make up the BRICS are generally condescending to Putin in relation to his invasion of Ukraine, support the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, and show tolerance towards dictatorial regimes such as those of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
As it is logical to imagine, in this conglomerate of nations Mr. Díaz-Canel and his cohort of followers feel like fish in water.
