Less than a month before the ninth edition of the Summit of the Americas, The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, said this Wednesday that he is not interested in participating in the eventwhich will take place in the city of Los Angeles.
(Also read: Nicaraguan Deputy: ‘outlawed NGOs tried to overthrow Ortega’)
“From here I say to the Yankee: forget it, we are not interested in being at that Summit, we are not interested (…) that summit does not exalt anyone,” Ortega said during an activity in Managua about this June meeting.
Washington, which has not yet issued the invitations, stated that respect for democracy is a condition for attending the summit. The head of US diplomacy for the Americas, Brian Nichols, stated that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela “do not respect” the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter.
For this reason, as well as Ortega, other heads of state have already declined their invitation to the Summit, which will be hosted by Joe Biden.
Such is the case of the Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, who said he will not attend the Summit on Tuesday, after US criticism of his appointment of Attorney General María Consuelo Porras, to a new term.
“They are not going to invite me to the summit. In any case, I sent word that I am not going to go,” he said Tuesday in a speech in Guatemala City.
(It may interest you: With fewer sanctions, the US paves the way for Venezuela’s crude)
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce, have said they will not attend the Summit if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not invited.
For her part, Honduran President Xiomara Castro said last week that it would not be a Summit of the Americas without the presence of all nations.
This Wednesday, in fact, López Obrador insisted before Washington that “there should be no exclusions” at the Summit of the Americas in his virtual meeting with Christopher Dodd, special adviser to the White House for said meeting.
The chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, affirmed in a video that the president addressed in his virtual meeting with Dodd “the invitation
of all the countries of the continent, without excluding anyone” in the midst of the controversy over the presumed absence
of countries with leftist leaders.
“President López Obrador explained what his concepts are, his idea of why this should be so, that there should be no exclusions, that we must enter a new historical stage, lay the foundations for a new relationship,” Ebrard said after the conversation. .
Biden settlement
Cynthia Arnson, director for Latin America at the Woodrow Wilson Center, spoke with EL TIEMPO about the measures of the Biden government on Venezuela and Cuba, which will allow greater benefits to the populations of each country.
According to the expert, the main reason behind this week’s announcements is probably the Summit of the Americas.
“The announcement is related to the difficulties that the summit has posed for Biden. The president wants to come to the meeting with a positive agenda for the region, and sanctions relief is part of that. Many criticize it because Latin America is not usually among the priorities of the United States and this is a gesture in that direction”, he maintains.
In addition, the analyst affirms, he was internally criticized for maintaining his predecessor’s policies and not fulfilling his campaign promises.
According to the expert, however, this will most likely not satisfy her critics in the region. Among other things, because the decision not to invite Cuba or Venezuela is given as a fact and it is unlikely that the countries that have threatened not to attend will change their minds after these announcements.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING*
With information from Bloomberg, Efe and AFP
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