Uruguay and US will attend Americas’ summit: Cuba and Ecuador absent

By Staff
MercoPress

Uruguay’s minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Almagro described on Friday, March 9, 2012, as inadmissible the exclusion of Cuba from the VI Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April 14/15 in Cartagena, Colombia.

“The exclusion of a hemispheric country from a summit which encompasses all countries of the region is inadmissible and we are going to bring it up at the summit when we have the opportunity,”

said Almagro speaking with reporters in Montevideo.

He added that Uruguay fully supports the Colombian efforts in the organization and attendance of the summit. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos has just come back from a visit to Cuba where he met with President Raul Castro and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez who is recovering from cancer surgery and radiotherapy.

However Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa announced he will not attend the summit because

“it is outrageous that in the 21st century something that calls itself the Summit of the Americas does not invite Cuba.”

He added that

“if it is a summit of the Americas, all countries of the Americas must be invited and attend.”

Cuba will not be present at the event in Colombia because Washington considers that the island does not comply with the conditions to attend.

The summit is “reserved for democratic countries,” active members of the Organization of American States, OAS, which expelled Cuba back in 1962, in the midst of the Cold War. However the decision was annulled in 2009 but Cuba did not accept to return to the OAS.

President Barak Obama has confirmed he will be flying to Colombia for the event.

Cuban Foreign Affairs minister Bruno Rodriguez said that the exclusion of Cuba imposed by the US

“is a crime and a major mistake for over half a century.”

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Cuban president Raul Castro has said that Cuba would attend if invited but is not interested in returning to the OAS.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, speaking from Washington, said he would like to see Cuba rejoin the OAS, and asked why Havana is not interested in returning to the organization.

The first summit of the Americas was held in Miami in 1994 with the attendance of leaders from the 34 countries that make up the OAS. Cuba has not participated in any of the five summits so far.

Insulza recalled that he worked strongly for the OAS three years ago to have sanctions against Cuba lifted.

“Cuba has also been invited to a dialogue with the rest of OAS members on democracy, human rights and reincorporation” said Insulza but “Cuba is not available and that is as far as we could progress.”

“It’s strange that Cuba is interested in attending a political meeting with 34 countries and not in the reincorporation into OAS”, added Insulza.

The OAS Secretary General admitted that three countries belonging to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA), among which Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, are not expected to attend the summit in Colombia.

 

Source: MercoPress