The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, today criticized the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas by the United States and lamented the trade embargoes imposed by Washington against Havana and Caracas.
«The silence of the absent challenges us. So that this does not happen again, I would like to make it clear for the future that the fact of being the host country of the Summit does not grant the ability to impose the right of admission on the member countries of the continent”, said the president in the plenary, when speak in his capacity as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). “Dialogue in diversity is the best instrument to promote democracy.”
Fernández formally invited the US president, Joe Biden, to participate in the next CELAC plenary meeting to “build bridges and tear down walls” on the continent.-
The Argentine president also criticized the Organization of American States (OAS), which he defined as a “gendarme” for having facilitated “a coup in Bolivia.” He also to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), whose management, historically in Latin American hands, was “appropriated” by the United States.
Fernández called for a “restructuring” of the OAS that would “immediately” change its managers, while the IDB must “return its governance” to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The president called for the end of the war in Ukraine, a conflict that had a “full” impact on the region.
“It is urgent to build negotiation scenarios that put an end to the war catastrophe, without humiliation or desire for domination, without dehumanized geopolitics or privileges of violence, so that the humanitarian tragedy we are experiencing today does not blind us,” he said.
Fernández also proposed the development of a “true common strategic association” between the American countries through the continental organization of food production and the promotion of the “enormous energy potential” and “critical minerals” necessary for the ecological transition.
«I have not come to Los Angeles to discuss when we should do it, the moment is today, hunger strikes. We just have to discuss how to do it,” said the president, who closed his speech with a claim for multilateralism and “democracy with social inclusion” against “polarization” and “individualism.”
EFE/OnCuba.
