Storm clouds gather over Cartagena

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez talking to the press yesterday

By Stephen Wilkinson

10 march, 2012: A political storm is gathering for the Obama administration following the visit to Cuba last week by Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia. At issue is next month’s summit of the Organisation of the American States (OAS) set to take place in Cartagena, Colombia, and a row that is developing between the countries of the ALBA bloc and the United States over Cuba’s exclusion.

The visit by Santos to Havana was historic because Colombia is now the United States’ closest ally in a region that has been increasingly turning its back on Washington. Just how far the nations of Latin America will go in support of Cuba’s inclusion in the OAS summit will be an acid test of their new confidence and strength. Santos wanted to discuss ways in which Cuba could be included at the summit, but left saying that no ‘consensus’ could be reached.

The day after he left, Bruno Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez gave a press conference in which he said that Cuba never asked to be invited to a Summit of the Americas.

Rodríguez also said that the “consensus” to which Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos referred on a brief visit to Havana to discuss the issue depended on the U.S. government, whose spokespersons had once again ruled out Cuba’s participation in the event.

Santos had met with President Raúl Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who was in the Cuban capital recovering from a second operation to remove a cancerous tumour. Cuba and Venezuela are founders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

Presidents Rafael Correa, of Ecuador, and Evo Morales, of Bolivia, have urged other leaders of ALBA member countries to boycott the 6th Summit of the Americas,  if the Cuban government is not invited. The ALBA bloc also includes Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Santos said he “truly understood the Cuban government’s desire to be part of that meeting,” but that no consensus existed for an invitation to be extended. He also thanked the Cuban government for its “comprehension” and for “generously saying it did not want to create a problem for the Summit or for Colombia.”

“We all understand that the consensus depends on Washington’s authorisation,” Rodríguez said, reiterating that Cuba’s position was made clear during the ALBA summit meeting in Caracas on 5 February, which President Castro attended.

At the summit, Castro commented that he had “never” made demands like the ones that were being proposed, but that he supported the statements of Correa, Morales and others in “taking action to end Cuba’s exclusion, a position that we consider to be very just,” Rodríguez said, quoting the Cuban president.

All eyes are now therefore on the ALBA countries to see whether they will go through with their threat not to attend the summit.
The minister said the ALBA countries’ position as “solid and unanimous” in also demanding that the issue be addressed in depth at the Cartagena summit. However, he opposed it being discussed in a closed-door meeting in Cuba’s absence.

According to Rodríguez, the ALBA foreign ministers will continue to discuss this situation to coordinate their actions, both within the bloc and with other Latin America and Caribbean governments, without exception.

“Latin America is no longer accepting that; it is building a project of regional sovereignty and integration that the United States cannot prevent, even if it tries. Cuba’s presence in Cartagena, from a distance, will be something that cannot be concealed, as was the case in 2009,” during the 5th Summit, held in Port of Spain, he said.

The regional context is favourable to Cuba in this case, since the  formation in December 2011 of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), an integrationiust grouping that excludes the US and Canada.
Havana will not be in Cartagena, but in 2013 it is due to receive the rotating presidency of the CELAC whose greatest virtue — for Cuba— is its independence from the United States.

CELAC groups 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations with a total combined population of 580 million. The region holds important natural resources and is reporting strong economic growth rates, but it continues to have serious inequalities in the distribution of wealth, ending 2011 with 174 million people living in poverty.

In June 2009, the Organisation of American States (OAS) repealed by consensus a 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba’s membership.

However, the Cuba rejected any return to the OAS, announcing that instead it would strengthen, expand and harmonise mechanisms for representative integration in the region, including the Caribbean island nations.

The Summits of the Americas began to be held in 1994 in Miami, as a political platform for the development of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Rodríguez noted.  During the 4th Summit, held in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata in 2005, the FTAA proposal was buried by Chávez and former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner.