The presidents of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela took advantage of the XXI Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), held this Friday in Havana, to criticize the decision of the United States to exclude them from the next Summit of the Americas, which will take place from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles. The Bolivian president has also reiterated that he will not attend the Summit in protest at the exclusion of “brother countries.”
The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, was the one who extended the longest and most aggressively. He denounced that the US policy is “tyrannical, imperial and terrorist” and affirmed that the Summit of the Americas ceased to be a “useful weapon” to apply its Monroe Doctrine.
“They are experiencing a moment of schizophrenia and they do not realize that this is no longer possible” because “in the world there is no longer room for hegemonism,” said the Nicaraguan leader, who participated virtually.
Ortega also considered that USA It has not renounced the Monroe Doctrine, a policy with which they have carried out “aggressions of all kinds, invasions, wars, government overthrows and blockades.” For which he cited, as an example, the economic embargo that Washington maintains against Cuba, which he described as “infamous, cowardly terrorist, a crime against humanity for more than 60 years, violating the human rights of a people.” .
On the other hand, the Nicaraguan president highlighted the integration and cooperation mechanisms that have emerged in recent times such as Petrocaribe, Alba and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), therefore, he valued, “the Summit of the Americas, which is the summit of the empire, where he summoned countries from his backyard and excluded those who had chosen their own path, such as Cuba.”
The Summit of Heads of State and Government of Alba is held ten days before the Summit of the Americasto which the United States advanced that it would not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua because it considers that they do not meet democratic standards and has been ambiguous about a possible invitation to an official of the Government of Cuba.
Cuba calls the US undemocratic
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, also took advantage of the opening of the Summit to launch himself against the “anti-democratic” and “interfering” practices of the US for excluding his country, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas.
“Neither politically nor morally do they have such a right” to decide who is invited to the Summit, affirmed the Cuban president, who criticized the US for assuming a “supervising power of democracy.”
In Díaz-Canel’s opinion, it is a “historic setback”, because Cuba had already been invited to the two previous editions of the Summit of the Americas, in Panama in 2015 and in Peru in 2018.
Díaz-Canel affirmed that in the US “they are not capable of ensuring a plural space” and “disrespect the differences” between the different political systems.
He also denounced the “deception maneuvers” of the US, an attempt in his opinion “disrespectful and harmful”, and the “obsolete and unacceptable policy of submission” that it entails.
He also highlighted the “strong opposition” that the US decision not to include all countries on the guest list has encountered in the region.
Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras and Guatemala have questioned their participation if there are excluded countries and others have criticized that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua do not participate in the Los Angeles meeting.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had promised for this Friday a definitive position on his participation or not in the Summit of the Americas; however, this morning the president argued that he awaits a formal response from Washington to his request to invite all countries to the meeting.
“We are going to wait for them to formally respond to us and from there we are going to make a decision; It’s not about confronting us, President (Joe) Biden is a respectful people,” said López Obrador.
Arce reiterates that he will not attend the Summit of the Americas
Meanwhile, the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, reiterated that he will not attend the Summit of the Americas “unless all Latin American countries are invited” and rejected any kind of “exclusion.”
Arce criticized that “no country can assume the right to decide who is part of the continent or not.”
For the Bolivian president, “the arbitrary decision of the United States to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under the excuse that their governments do not respect the Democratic Charter has only managed to weaken the institutionality of the forum.”
A few days before the meeting, the United States has not yet published the final list of participants, but has confirmed that it will not include Venezuela or Nicaragua and has been ambiguous about a possible invitation to an official of the Cuban Government.
The Alba Summit, unexpectedly announced last Tuesday, is part of the regional response to Washington’s decision that has sparked criticism from part of the hemisphere.
Maduro thanks Mexico, Honduras and Argentina
For his part, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, thanked the support of his counterparts in Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; from Honduras, Xiomara Castro; and from Argentina, Alberto Fernández, after the exclusion of his country from the Summit of the Americas and pointed out the “erratic” call by the US.
“We say erratic call because it has been tried, and it is intended, to exclude the peoples of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from that meeting that calls itself the Summit of the Americas. We have combined in the course of this week the enormous power that the Latin American and Caribbean conscience has,” Maduro claimed.
According to the Venezuelan president, almost 20 years after the founding of Alba, this regional forum can “show a unionist, Bolivarian, Latin American and Caribbean doctrine of countries and governments (…) that we unite among equals.”
With information from Eph.
