The Summit of the Americas took off yesterday in Los Angeles with strong turbulence after the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as the desertion of the president of Mexico from this meeting in which the migration crisis is the main course.
“I don’t go to the Summit because not everyone is invited the countries of America and I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries, exclusion,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, despite the fact that US President Joe Biden urged him to attend.
In his place will be Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.
Washington confirmed yesterday that it will not invite to meet the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“The United States continues to maintain reservations about the lack of democratic spaces and the human rights situation in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” said a Biden administration official explaining the decision.
“We have to respect the democratic tradition of the Summit of the Americas,” said the head of US diplomacy for Latin America, Brian Nichols, who is participating in a civil society meeting within the framework of the Summit in Los Angeles.
The diplomat said that Venezuela will be represented by a delegate from Juan Guaidó, opposition leader whom the United States and some 50 other countries recognize as interim president.
“Neoliberal failure”
“The event is already a neoliberal failure” that “isolates and disconnects the United States from Our America. Pressure and blackmail are known,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote on Twitter. President Miguel Díaz-Canel had already said that he would not attend.
For his part, Cuban dissident leader Manuel Cuesta Morúa denounced that the Government prevented the trip of opponents to the Summit. “An exclusive regime that protests when they exclude it,” he said.
The presidents of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, who aligned himself with AMLO, and of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, whose management has received criticism from the White House, have already announced that they will not attend either.
The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, canceled his trip on Monday after testing positive for covid-19.
The Bolivian President, Luis Arce has also said that he will not travel to Los Angeles if not all of them gowhile the bloc of 14 Caribbean nations has also questioned its presence.
During the week there will be meetings of civil society, academic meetings and business leaders. The presidential plenary sessions are scheduled for Thursday 9 and Friday 10.
The Summit, which cwill conclude on friday and is celebrated with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop, it will allow Biden to meet with some of his colleagues, such as the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, who is scheduled to arrive on Thursday.
“A stab”
Yesterday the presidents of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, an important transit country for migrants, were due to arrive in Los Angeles; and from Chile, Gabriel Boric, critical of the exclusion of guests.
“Despite the fact that the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, celebrated the “slight but significant steps” of the United States over the weekend by “delivering licenses” to oil companies to operate in the country, he was left out of the meeting.
“The United States Government itself was in charge of stabbing the possibility of success of the Summit of the Americas,” Maduro said over the weekend.
However, he estimated that the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, who will attend, “will carry (…) the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean.” “I know we are going to be well represented,” he added.
For its part, Cuba denounced that there is no justification for the exclusion of representatives of the Caribbean island, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas, which he described as “undemocratic” and “arbitrary” and highlighted the position of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who refused to attend the meeting.
