Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba, during the Ibero-American Summit taking place this Saturday in the Dominican Republic Mónica González Islas
The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, spoke this Saturday at the XXVIII. Ibero-American Summit in the Dominican Republic launched a sharp attack against the United States, the global financial system and the economic blockade. Seeking the complicity of Latin American leaders, the president has condemned the trade embargo and rejected Washington’s decision to keep the island on the list of terrorism-supporting countries. “The US government is determined to destabilize our country and destroy the Cuban revolution,” said Díaz-Canel, the voice most critical of some of the summit’s proposals.
At previous meetings, the Cuban delegation thwarted the meeting’s most relevant initiative, a proposal to reform the world financial market, aimed at facilitating access to credit, particularly in Latin America. In his speech, the President called for a restructuring of the international financial architecture, but combined this urgency with avoiding the reproduction of a scheme of “modern colonialism”. He also complained about the “bubbles of finance capitalism” and called for the abolition of foreign debt. The President also took the opportunity to express his “solidarity with the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, which face constant attempts at destabilization”. However, he agreed with the proposal of the Presidents of the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica in favor of an international mobilization in support of Haiti.
Even if the presence of Daniel Ortega was never on the table, in the hours leading up to the summit, speculation spread about the appearance of Nicolás Maduro, who initially agreed and then canceled his participation – just like in Andorra two or more years ago at the last January last summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) – this time due to the suspicion of a Covid-19 contagion. Chilean Gabriel Boric was the only one to speak out against the Managua regime without taking half-hearted action, showing the vast disparities between the executive branches that govern the spectrum of the left in Latin America today.
For his part, Colombian Gustavo Petro defended former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who has been in prison since last December after a failed attempted coup d’état. “He was supposed to be here, the blow was dealt to him,” he stressed. More forgiving, Argentinian Alberto Fernández, another progressive ruler of the region, opted for an appeal to cohesion that flew throughout the summit: “We are all passengers in the same boat, we all share a common destiny, no one is saved alone.” Before him, the President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, had also stressed the need for cooperation between the 22 Ibero-American countries: “If we do not unite, we will miss the opportunity to achieve concrete benefits for our countries,” he remarked.
Díaz-Canel’s attacks on the United States have reached the sports field. The politician has criticized the harassment of the Cuban baseball team, which was playing the semifinals of the World Classic in Miami last week. “Just because they represent Cuba, our players and their families have been ruthlessly harassed,” he said. “We appreciate the valuable accompaniment of Latin America for the valuable statements opposing the blockade and their calls for Cuba’s exclusion from the arbitrary list of state sponsors of terrorism. Faced with the Empire’s attempts to re-colonize us and impose on us a unique culture and models, the region is uniting under the leadership of Celac,” he continued. Cuba is celebrating parliamentary elections this Sunday, the only unknown being the abstentions.