Advocating local solutions to continental conflicts

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 7 (ACN) Cuban researchers and journalists agree that Latin America and the Caribbean should seek solutions to their problems through local mechanisms of dialogue and integration, as opposed to those imposed by the United States.

Elio Perera Pena, from the Center for International Policy Research (CIPI), said that the interests of the US government remain unchanged and based on political pragmatism towards the region and the hemisphere, as evidenced by 9th Summit of the Americas currently going on in the city of Los Angeles.

He referred to the host’s refusal to heed the demands of other governments to not exclude any country from a Summit that is also ignoring sensitive issues such as state terrorism, health for all, and the approach to inequality and poverty to focus instead on finding ways to counter Russia’s and China’s economic activity in the region.

CIPI researcher Pavel Alemán Benítez said in turn that Biden has failed to properly manage the U.S. Latin America policy—quite damaged under Donald Trump—and praised Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to not attend the Summit, calling it a very symbolic stance.

Jorge Legañoa Alonso, vice-president of the Union of Cuban Journalists, remarked that the United States excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the meeting as an attempt to rebuild its hegemony and reconfigure its foreign policy, hence the importance of the Summit of the Peoples, which will session in parallel in Los Angeles, as the truly consequential political event in the region.

There is an atmosphere of great expectation, since more than 200 community organizations, social movements, labor unions, progressive forces and excluded sectors in the U.S. will participate in the parallel event, he added.