Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel used his speech at the XXVIII. Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo on Saturday to express its “solidarity with the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia” in the face of international pressure. The clue is itself a statement of intent because it is meant to give an idea of the block. The old Bolivarian axis, propagated at the time by Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, which lost momentum in the middle of the last decade, no longer exists. The appointment of the Dominican Republic showed the chasm that exists today in Latin America between the progressive governments and the old model heir of the Cuban and Sandinista revolutions.
The unbridled drift of the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, which accelerated in February with the exile of more than 200 political prisoners and the stripping of citizenship of a further 94 opponents, cost Nicaragua virtually unanimous condemnation from the international community . Chilean President Gabriel Boric expressed this rejection without nuance during the meeting of the 22 countries of the Ibero-American community. “It is unacceptable that we remain silent in the face of the Ortega and Murillo family dictatorship,” demanded the young left-wing politician. “He doesn’t seem to know that home is carried in his soul and in his blood and not removed by decree. Gioconda Belli, Sergio Ramírez and Dora María Téllez, among many others, know this well,” the President continued, referring to the two writers and the mythical Commander Two of the Sandinista Revolution, imprisoned for 605 days in the dreaded El Chipote prison , which is considered the worst dungeon in Managua.
It is not the first time that Boric has spoken out sharply about human rights violations by the Ortega regime. However, he had never done so before Denis Moncada, the Nicaraguan foreign minister who also attended the Ibero-American Summit. The Chancellor’s reaction was predictable. “We demand that President Boric of Chile respect the government and people of Nicaragua. It must not use Nicaragua to betray the people and surrender to the North American empire. We demand respect from our government, respect from the Nicaraguan people.”
Gabriel Boric, President of Chile during the XXVIII. Iberoamerican Summit Mónica González Islas
Alongside this clash can be heard in Santo Domingo such diverse approaches from left leaders, firstly questioning the inclusion of all in an even similar spectrum, and secondly raising a series of questions about the definition of what is the left in Latin America today. Peronism, represented in the Forum by Argentine Alberto Fernández, has always been different. But Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was absent from the summit, also returned in January to lead a broad coalition marking differences with his first governments.
Colombian Gustavo Petro made a plea in defense of former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, assuring that what happened last December was not a self-coup but that he was credited with the coup. The Colombian President resumed relations with Nicolás Maduro’s government, despite having a worldview and, above all, an idea of an economic model very different from that of Hugo Chávez’s successor. And on the other hand, empirical evidence draws no comparisons between the Ortega regime and the Chavismo who, despite US sanctions, have returned to negotiate with that country to reopen the oil sector, let alone Bolivia. Luis Arce’s government faces other problems, but the situation is not comparable to that of Venezuela or Nicaragua. For his part, Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another president framed in the progressive movement and also absent from the summit, highlighted the peculiarities of his country’s ecosystem. A kind of left in almost every country and in every government.
Gustavo Petro President of Colombia arriving at the XXVIII Iberoamerican Summit Mónica González Islas