Andrew Oppenheimer
The summit of heads of state of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina ended on Tuesday with bombastic speeches in defense of democracy, but actually turned out to be an act of support for dictatorships and dictatorship coup leaders.
First, the Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel and the foreign ministers of Venezuela and Nicaragua were allowed to sit at the same table as the democratically elected presidents. This gave these totalitarian regimes a political legitimacy they rarely receive in international assemblies.
Worse, the summit’s host, Argentine President Alberto Fernández, reiterated at the meeting that “all who are here have been chosen by their peoples.”
This was not just a blatant lie, it was an insult to intelligence. Cuba has not allowed free elections for the last 64 years, has banned all political opposition parties and has not allowed a single non-state newspaper, radio or television station. There are no free elections in Cuba.
Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro fraudulently re-elected himself in 2018 after jailing or expelling opposition candidates, censoring the media and barring international observers.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega was re-elected to a fourth straight term in the rigged 2021 election in which he jailed or banned all key opposition candidates. All three countries are accused of massive human rights violations.
Maduro originally promised to attend the summit but stayed home at the last minute after Argentine opposition leaders called for his international arrest. The US government has an outstanding $15 million arrest warrant for Maduro on drug-related charges.
In addition to legitimizing regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, several presidents at the CELAC summit backed former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo’s failed December 7 coup d’état in Peru.
The presidents of Colombia and Mexico delivered impassioned speeches in defense of Castillo, who was rightfully ousted by Congress after his attempted coup.
The President of Mexico, Manuel López Obrador, said at the summit that “what they did to Pedro Castillo and how they oppress the people” is a shame in Peru.
In fact, Castillo ordered the closure of Congress and announced in a televised address to the country that he would rule by decree. It was a self-coup in front of the whole world.
At the summit, Argentine and Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave a heroic welcome to former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who had also tried to use unconstitutional means to stay in power. Morales illegally ran for a fourth term in 2019, claiming victory in a rigged election before being forced to resign.
Among the few voices defending fundamental freedoms at the CELAC summit were Chilean President Gabriel Boric and Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle.
The 28-page final declaration from the CELAC summit is a wish list on trade, the environment and dozens of other issues. The Peruvian crisis is not mentioned, presumably because CELAC’s final declarations have to be adopted by consensus.
In a special section on Cuba, the CELAC final declaration calls for an end to the US trade embargo on Cuba and demands that the US remove Cuba from its list of terrorism-supporting nations. But the statement does not ask Cuba to hold free elections or release political prisoners.
The final paragraph of the statement announces that the next CELAC summit will be chaired by St. Vincent and the Grenadines, whose prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, is a close ally of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba and has been in power for 22 years.
In summary, the CELAC summit spoke of democracy, but in fact it gave political oxygen to the dictators and the putschists.
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