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Latin America

Biden’s Summit Of No-Shows

I tip my cap, as we all should, to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico. And to Presidents Luis Arce of Bolivia, Xiaomara Castro of Honduras, Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala and Nayib Bukele of El Savador. They all pointedly declined to join President Joe Biden at his Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last week, joining to protest Biden’s refusal to invite Miguel Díaz–Canel, Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega, the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua respectively. Add it up. Eight of the region’s 33 nations were absent when Biden convened the summit “to demonstrate the resurgence of U.S. leadership in the region,” as the government-supervised New York Times forlornly put it. Don’t they ever get tired of these long-exhausted phrases over on Eighth Avenue?

‘Summit Of Exclusion’ Backfires On Biden

While hosting the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last week, the Biden administration sought to ostracize Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela by excluding them due to an alleged “lack of democratic space and human rights situations”. The resulting backlash caused these three countries to be the most discussed topic inside and outside the summit venue, as governments and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean questioned whether the United States has the right or moral authority to pass judgment on the form of government each nation chooses. There was also plenty of skepticism about whether the Organization of American States (OAS), which has served as an instrument for advancing US hegemony in the region, really promotes the interests of the countries of the hemisphere.

Protest Against Exclusions At Summit Of The Americas In Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California - "We are here today in front of the Convention Center protesting against the Summit of the Americas and particularly the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is not really the Summit of the Americas if a large part of that continent and the peoples of Latin America are excluded from the Summit," Answer Coalition director Brian Becker told Sputnik. They also demand an end to the blockade of Cuba, he added. The demonstrators shouted chants directed at U.S. President Joe Biden for his decision to leave out these three nations. Participants also carried Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan flags and banners. "Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela," "Stop the U.S. destabilization campaign and media lies," and "End all U.S. sanctions and blockades" were some of the phrases read on the demonstrators' placards.

For the Peoples of our Region, the Failure of Biden’s Summit of the Americas Would be a Welcome Event

I applaud the decision by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to attend this week’s so-called Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and hope that by Wednesday a majority of the nations in our region would have joined him. However, I am hoping that unlike President Lopez Obrador who is still sending the Mexican foreign minister, other nations demonstrate that their dignity cannot be coerced and stay away completely. Why do I take this position? If the threat by the Biden Administration as host of the Summit not to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all sovereign nations in the Americas’ region, was not outrageous enough, the announced rationale that the administration did not invite these nations because of their human rights record and authoritarian governance is an absurd indignity that cannot be ignored.

Another World Is Possible, But We Have To Make It So

The People’s Summit for Democracy began in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 8. However, it is much more than just an alternative to the Biden administration’s and the Organization of American States’ Summit of the Americas. The Summit of the Americas has historically been a place for the United States, which plays a central role in the OAS and which continues to exploit the Americas for resources and markets, to present its own agenda for the region. But this year, beginning with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, many Latin American leaders across the continent decided to boycott the summit entirely. The boycott was a protest against the exclusion of the Latin American nations that the United States is most hostile towards: Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Haiti And The Americas Syllabus

What does it mean to defend our Americas? For the Black Alliance for Peace, defending our Americas begins with a re-drawing of the map of the Americas. No longer can the United States stand at the center of the hemisphere, upholding an eternal whiteness while imposing a suffocating capitalism. Instead, for BAP, Haiti is the center of the Americas. Solidarity with Haiti is key to the defense of the Americas. Haiti endures the original territory of Black emancipation from slavery, of Black independence from colonialism, and Black resistance to racism and global capitalism. Yet Haiti has also become the region’s laboratory for neocolonialism and neoliberalism and a centuries-long counter-revolution against Black freedom and sovereignty.

Summit Of The Americas, Another Nail In The Coffin Of Monroe Doctrine

A few hours before the inauguration of the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, the Biden administration had not yet been able to publish its guest list for the event. This is the second time the US is hosting the Summit, the first time was the first Summit held in Miami back in 1994. The objectives proposed for this ninth edition of the Summit are to focus on the creation of a regional agreement on migration and the formulation of a post COVID-19 economic recovery strategy. However, according to an analysis published by Xinhua, the main concern in this edition of the Summit will not be the usual lack of consensus in the region but, rather, the absence of several regional leaders who will not participate.

US Government’s Summit Of The Americas Fails

The US government’s Summit of the Americas started on June 6 in Los Angeles, California. And the event proved to be a major diplomatic failure for the Joe Biden administration. Washington refused to invite the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. So to protest this exclusion, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras boycotted the summit. Guatemala’s president also chose to skip the conference. This means heads of state representing Latin American countries with a total population of more than 200 million people – a significant percentage of the Americas – refused to attend Washington’s Summit of the Americas. The most significant absence was Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly by the acronym AMLO. “I am not going to the summit because not all of the countries of the Americas were invited,” AMLO explained in his morning press conference on June 6.

A Summit Against Democracy

The summit convening in Los Angeles next week is yet another proof of the authoritarian and anti-democratic character of the elites that rule the United States. 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, when Cuba had already participated in the VII and VIII versions of the Summit of the Americas in Panama and Lima after 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 neo-liberal hegemony, when it could make and break countries and governments as it pleased, is over.

A Progressive Vision To Counter US Dominance

In a recent interview, Brian Nichols, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, was asked the question that is on everyone’s mind ahead of the June 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California: Will three particular countries in Latin America (Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) be invited? Nichols responded with neither hesitation nor equivocation that the answer was no. Speaking on behalf of President Joe Biden, he further added that countries whose “actions do not respect democracy”—as the U.S. government views these three countries and others like them—“will not receive invitations.” Nichols’ seemingly offhand comment, said with the usual arrogance of U.S. officials and calling the three countries “regime[s that] do not respect [democracy],” sent a shockwave through the region that the U.S. was likely not expecting.

ALBA-TCP On The Summit Of The Americas (Declaration)

Cuba has once again hosted the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that make up the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) for their 21st Summit. The main objectives of Friday’s meeting, held at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, was to share common development strategies and analyze the regional political situation. ALBA-TCP is currently made up of 10 countries, following the reincorporation of Saint Lucia in the last edition of these summits, also held in Havana: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia.

And Then There Was No More Empire All Of A Sudden

Empire denies its own existence. It does not exist as an empire but only as benevolence, with its mission to spread human rights and sustainable development across the world. However, that perspective means nothing in Havana nor in Caracas, where ‘human rights’ has come to mean regime change, and where ‘sustainable development’ has come to mean the throttling of their people through sanctions and blockades. It is from the standpoint of the victims of empire that clarity comes. US President Joe Biden is to host the Summit of the Americas in June, where he hopes to deepen Washington’s hegemony over the Americas. The United States government understands that its project of hegemony faces an existential crisis caused by the weaknesses of the US political system and the US economy, with limited funds available for investment within its own country, let alone for the rest of the world.

Colombia Deports Outstanding Communicator Teri Mattson

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) denounces the detention and deportation of COHA Board Member and CODEPINK Latin America organizer and media host Teri Mattson, who traveled to Bogota to serve as an accredited international observer for the historic May 29th election in Colombia. She had been invited by Colombia’s Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH). Ms. Mattson, having arrived in Bogota on May 22, was refused entry by Colombian authorities, forced to stay in the airport overnight and deported on May 23 on the absurd grounds that she “represents a risk to the security of the State.” Ms. Mattson is a person of impeccable integrity and has served on a number of electoral missions to Latin America.

Alternative Formations Challenge Biden’s Sham ‘Summit For The Americas’

From June 6 to 10, the Biden administration will host the 9th 'Summit of the Americas.' The event, organized by the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), is turning out to be another huge foreign policy embarrassment for President Biden. In response to the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, an unprecedented number of Latin American and Caribbean Nations are refusing to attend. Clearing the FOG speaks with Claudia de la Cruz about this new era of solidarity and opposition to US hegemony. Social movements are organizing a counter summit, the People's Summit, in Los Angeles and a Workers' Summit in Tijuana. Countries are beginning to abandon the OAS and meet using CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) as an alternative formation. This is another nail in the coffin of the US' unipolar power and a sign that the multipolar world has arrived.

Call For ‘Workers Summit Of The Americas’

The Workers Summit of the Americas meeting, in Tijuana, Mexico, offers a space to join with all the peoples of “Our Americas.” We will counteract the OAS Summit of the Americas organized by the U.S. Department of State in Los Angeles. The countries of the continent besieged by the USA (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, among others) will not participate in the OAS farce.  The Workers’ Summit gives us the opportunity to invite our comrades in struggle from North America who want to participate. Tijuana is a meeting place with the progressive forces of the South and the North at a moment when the working class is facing the most unprecedented challenges in the history of humanity. 
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