The summit convened in Los Angeles next week is irrefutable proof of the authoritarian and anti-democratic character of the elites that rule the United States (US). The exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the meeting from the outset confirms this. This is an extremely serious fact, which leads to other very serious exclusions as well. The United States has disregarded the consensus of non-exclusion that had been reached, by which Cuba had already participated in the VII and VIII editions of Panama and Lima in obedience to a general clamor of the governments and peoples of the region. This means that Washington does not understand, or does not want to realize, that the era of neoliberal hegemony when it could make and break as it pleased, is over. Nor can it stand the fact that the peoples’ rejection of neo-liberalism and a clear trend toward the election of progressive governments, present in Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Argentina, Chile and knocking on the door in Colombia with Petro, the recent winner of the first round, and in Brazil with Lula, whom all the polls already give as the absolute winner, are once again gaining strength -as in the late 1990s and late 2000s- but with more depth.  Of course, to this, we must add Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and the 6 brave Eastern Caribbean States that are part of ALBA, all of which share many ideas and also projections in foreign policy with the above mentioned and have just shown a clear and accurate view of the current world in the XXI Summit of ALBA.

Another serious anti-democratic action of the Biden administration is that it did not ask the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean what issues they were interested in discussing at the meeting. With their usual arrogance and, as proof that the ghost of James Monroe still guides the actions of the State Department and the White House, they took upon themselves the right, which no one has granted them, to decide the topics and, if anything, to pretend to consult the drafts with some of the governments they liked. On top of not having asked for the criteria of the other countries in due time, they are now running against the clock, trying to repair the irreparable.

Media leaks and a document published on May 24 by the US Congressional Research Service reveal some of the issues that the US intends to discuss at the meeting. Illegal migration is at the top of the list, together with border control, analysis of its causes, co-responsibility in the matter, etc. All of this is highly debatable since it is the policies of the United States and the submissive local oligarchies that are the major causes of migration in the region, starting with their dozens of military interventions since the 19th century, which added to the imposition -sometimes invasion by the Marines- of bloody military dictatorships, then the national security doctrine and the Condor Plan, without forgetting the Central American wars of the 1980s and finally the neo-liberal policies. Almost all of them are the cause of Mesoamerican migration.

How does Washington intend to discuss illegal migration if Cuba and Venezuela, whose migratory flows have been deliberately provoked by its criminal blockade policy, in the case of Cuba for six decades and taken to savage extremes of cruelty; in both cases maintained during the pandemic, do not participate in the debate.

According to its organizers, the summit proposes actions that “dramatically improve pandemic response and resilience, promote a green and equitable recovery, bold, strong and inclusive democracies and address the root causes of irregular migration”. Honestly, it’s a laugh riot. Since when has the empire been concerned about solving our problems? If it were not outrageous, it would also be laughable to pretend a serious debate on the response to the pandemic that does not take into account Cuba, the only third world country that created its own vaccines and with the disease under total control thanks to having immunized 96 percent of its population.  Add to this the sending of 5,000 of its doctors to support other countries against covid.

The U.S. said nothing about who will provide the funds to achieve these wonders.  It is worth mentioning that President López Obrador has reminded Washington of its failure to comply with the miserable 4 billion promised to contain migration in Central America with social programs, while in a jiffy Biden and Congress approved a whopping 40 billion dollars for Ukraine.

The extremely dangerous conflict against Russia, the no less dangerous hegemonic dispute with China, the control of our region with docile governments, and the November elections seem to be the only thing that really worries the ailing Biden Administration. The rest: electoral contortions for the gallery.

translation Red en Defensa de la Humanidad – Cuba