ALBA denounces exclusion of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from Summit of the Americas
NSCAG News |
on: Monday, 30 May 2022
Delegates meeting at ALBA summit
On 27 May, Cuba has 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 the meeting, held at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, was to share common development strategies and analyse the regional political situation.
ALBA-TCP is currently made up of 10 countries, following the reincorporation of Saint Lucia in the last 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.
The XXI ALBA-TCP Summit took place days before the IX Summit of the Americas, to be held, amid uncertainties, in Los Angeles, California, after the United States all but announced that it would not invite Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela to the meeting. Several countries of the region - Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras and Guatemala and most of the Caribbean states - have condemned the exclusion of countries from the region and have said that they will not attend if these countries are not included.
As things stand, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala and most of the Caribbean states have said they will not attend if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are not included.
Although Biden no longer calls them the ‘troika of tyranny’ like Trump did, the governments of these three countries are still ostracized by Washington. But in Latin America, Biden’s threat to exclude them from the party has not gone down well. While it might be Washington’s turn to host the summit, the invitation list is supposed to include every state in the two continents, regardless of political disposition. Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, one of those threatening to stay away, asked ‘How can a summit be “of America” without all the countries of America?
The text of a declaration issued by the ALBA Summit, denouncing discrimination by the US and Organisation of American States, can be found here
