BELIZE CITY. Mon. May 23, 2022
An open letter sent to the Secretary-General of CARICOM, Dr. Carla Barnett, from the Caribbean Pan African Network (CPAN) commends the Caribbean Community’s stance that all the independent nations of the Americas should be invited to the upcoming Summit of the Americas being hosted by the United States early next month. This is following the unilateral decision by the US to refuse to invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. As a result of this, various nations have publicly rejected the invitation from the US, and are demanding that all nations in the Americas be included in the Summit.
“The nations of Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras, and even Brazil have all publicly confirmed that they will not be attending the Summit – and certainly not at the level of their Heads of Government – if the USA persists with its policy of excluding Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua,” the open letter from CPAN stated.
As previously reported, during the CARICOM Heads of Government conference hosted in San Pedro, Belize, earlier this year, the Chairman of CARICOM, Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño, announced that the nations have resolved to boycott the Summit if the US insists on excluding certain countries.
No official response on the matter has been released by the US, but there have been reports, from Prime Minister Briceño himself, of the US applying pressure on the Caribbean communities to ensure that they attend the conference.
The first Summit of the Americas was called by the US in 1994 when Bill Clinton was president, and the US at that time had refused to invite Cuba, but by the time the 6th Summit was held in Colombia in 2012, a resolution had been passed that every independent nation of America would be invited.
“A Summit of the Americas is not the property of any particular nation or Government, and must not have inserted into it any political or ideological principle that is used to exclude nations, peoples, or Heads of Government of our region. All right-thinking people of the Caribbean were therefore horrified when we learned that the USA – the host nation
of this year’s Summit of the Americas – had unilaterally determined that the nations of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were not going to be invited to this year’s Summit. And that they were not going to be invited simply because the USA does not approve of the governments of these nations!” the letter from CPAN states.
CPAN calls out President Joe Biden for this decision in the open letter.
“This piece of high-class folly on the part of President Biden and his Administration must not be facilitated or accommodated by the nations and governments of our hemisphere! Indeed, even former US President, Donald Trump, did not sink to this low level in relation to the 2018 Summit of the Americas!” it stated.
At this point, a number of nations have boycotted this hemisphere-wide Summit because of the stance held by the USA. There is no clear indication whether some countries will attend or not, but the executive board of the CPAN, which comprises members from across CARICOM, is calling on Heads of States to stand on principle.
“We, the people of the Caribbean, want a CARICOM that we can be proud of – a CARICOM that stands for principle; a CARICOM that does not abandon loyal friends like Cuba; a CARICOM that does not permit one or two principled CARICOM member states to have to stand up alone to a mighty power like the USA; a CARICOM of collective security.” the open letter from CPAN stated.