Afp, Prensa Latina, Arn and Sputnik
Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, May 3, 2022, p. 5
Washington. The United States will not invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the Summit of the Americas in June in Los Angeles, stated yesterday the US Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols.
It is a key moment in our hemisphere, a moment in which we are facing many challenges for democracy and the countries (…) Cuba, Nicaragua and the regime of (Nicolás) Maduro do not respect the Democratic Charter of the Americas and therefore do not I await your presence
Nichols declared, in an interview with the NTN24 network, and from which he shared fragments on his Twitter account.
When asked if Washington will invite the Cuban government, which attended the 2015 summit in Panama, Nichols replied: Do not
and stated: It is a decision of the president (Joe Biden), but I think it has been very clear that (…) countries that do not respect democracy by their actions will not receive invitations
.
Cuba denounced last week, in the voice of its Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, the exclusion of Havana from the preparations for the forum and the pressure exerted on governments in the region that oppose that position.
The head of Cuban diplomacy assured that ignoring the presence of the Caribbean nation in that meeting would be a serious historical setback that would be detrimental to the objectives of agreement.
Rodríguez asserted that the intention to exclude the island would be due to a politically motivated maneuver, as part of the double standards linked to the internal and electoral situation in the United States.
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, stressed that the United States does not understand that Latin America and the Caribbean have changed forever and that there is no room to reinstate the Monroe Doctrine and the Pan-American vision, with which it intends to impose its hegemonic domination in the Western Hemisphere.
In response to the request that Mexico made to the United States to convene all the countries of the region, Díaz-Canel supported the Mexican position on his social networks: “#Cuba thanks and shares questions from @lopezobrador in #LaMañanera. How is it that we convene a Summit of the Americas and not invite everyone? So where are the uninvited from? From what continent, from what galaxy, from what satellite?”
In an interview with the American newspaper The Hillthe Vice Foreign Minister of Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, criticized that the US government, as host of the forum, feels privileged to call only whoever it wants and still call the Summit of the Americas meeting.
In reality, the White House intends to hold a meeting of friends who are capable of listening to what the United States is saying, accepting its agenda and reproducing it, he added.
Last week, former Bolivian President Evo Morales said that the next forum will no longer be of the Americas
because the United States plans to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela
.
Is it fear of countries that decided to be anti-neoliberal with free health and education systems? We condemn imperialism and policies of exclusion
Morales posted on his Twitter account.
The United States has subjected Cuba to a blockade for more than 60 years. President Biden has not fulfilled his promise to relax the sanctions that his predecessor Donald Trump reinforced against the island.
In addition, it does not recognize the presidents of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, and Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, considering that they were elected in fraudulent elections.
The United States and dozens of countries consider Juan Guaidó interim president of Venezuela since Maduro’s re-election in 2018.
The Summit of the Americas will be held this year in Los Angeles and will be held in June. It will focus on defending democracy and human rights in the Western Hemisphere, irregular migration, climate change, and efforts to ensure equitable growth as the region emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
