Cuba denounced on Monday that the United States excluded it from the preparations for the 9th Summit of the Americas to be held in June in Los Angeles, considering that it would be a “historic setback” for the Joe Biden administration.
“I must denounce that the United States government has decided to exclude the Republic of Cuba from the preparations for the 9th Summit of the Americas,” which will take place between June 8 and 10 in the aforementioned city of California, he said in a press statement by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
The official urged the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to clarify whether the government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel will be convened.
Rodríguez claimed to have evidence that Washington “is exerting extreme pressure at this time on numerous governments in the region that are opposed” to said exclusion.
He considered that not inviting Havana would be a “serious historical setback,” after the island participated in the last two summits, in 2015, in Panama, and in 2018, in Lima, “in which Cuba participated on an equal footing. “.
Later, a State Department spokesman told AFP that no “invitations have been extended from the White House” to the summit.
Foreign Minister Rodríguez had said early on that the US government is “deceiving” by giving that argument and urged Blinken to say “honestly whether Cuba will be invited or not.”
The United States seeks to reach a “firm” agreement on migration with Latin American countries for the next Summit of the Americas, Blinken said last week during a visit to Panama, where he met with ministers from some twenty countries of the region in search of agreements to address this issue in the region.
– ‘Suppress migration’ –
“Right now, behind the backs of public opinion, a Letter of Understanding document on migration management and protection of migrants is being negotiated,” Rodríguez said.
It is “a code that seeks to force Latin American and Caribbean states to repress migration, to absorb the migrants that the United States decides to process within its territory,” he added.
The meeting took place at a time when Cuba is experiencing massive emigration, in the midst of its worst economic crisis in almost three decades.
According to the United States Customs office, from October 2021 to March 2022, more than 78,000 Cubans entered the country through the border with Mexico, a figure that almost doubles the number of nationals who left the island during the so-called “crisis of the rafters”, in 1994.
Cuban migrants are the second largest group, after Hondurans, arriving at Mexico’s northern border to enter the United States illegally.
Rodríguez indicated that while other countries in the region have received encouragement from Washington to contain the migratory flow, “in Cuba, however, their prescription is the tightening of the blockade.”
Washington and Havana resumed negotiations on migration interrupted since 2018 last Thursday, in the first high-level bilateral meeting since Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021.
These migration talks “are without a doubt a positive sign” since Washington recognized the full validity of the 1994-1995 and 2017 bilateral agreements, the foreign minister estimated.
It is “correct and positive” that the US side has recognized the non-compliance with the delivery of 20,000 agreed annual visas and that it is ready to resume its consular services at the embassy in Havana, although in a limited way, he added.
– Health and democracy –
Rodríguez explained that, in addition to emigration, the other two topics planned for the summit are health – basically the control of the covid pandemic – and democracy.
For the summit “a so-called health and resilience plan for the Americas is negotiated in an opaque manner until 2030,” he said.
He recalled that his country “has offered the possibilities of international cooperation in health matters” and that he proposed to Washington the cooperation of both with third countries, “to which there has been no response to date.”
“The United States government will be able to show little about democracy at this incomplete summit,” said Rodríguez, who offered Washington “to discuss these issues bilaterally, multilaterally,” without fear.
The United States has insisted on the release of hundreds of protesters imprisoned for the historic protests that broke out on July 11, 2021 in nearly 50 Cuban cities.
