On September
18 the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)
successfully held its Sixth Summit of Heads of State and Government in
Mexico City. The last summit was held in January 2017 in the Dominican
Republic.
CELAC is an inter-governmental
organization for dialogue and political coordination to foster the
political, economic, social and cultural integration of Latin America
and the Caribbean and the well-being of all the peoples of the region.
Comprised of all countries of the Americas except for the U.S. and
Canada, which were deliberately excluded, CELAC was founded in February
2010 as an initiative to promote unity in diversity and overcome
divisions arising out of constant efforts of the U.S. to assert its
hegemony in its "backyard" through its instrument for that purpose, the
Organization of American States (OAS).
CELAC's
founding declaration issued in 2011 at its first summit expressed a
commitment to respect for international law, the peaceful settlement of
disputes, the prohibition of the use and threat of the use of force,
respect for the self-determination, sovereignty and territorial
integrity of countries and non-interference in their internal affairs,
and the protection and promotion of human rights and democracy. At the
second summit held in Havana in 2014 CELAC members unanimously
proclaimed Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace in
observance of the principles enshrined in the UN Charter and
international law.
Over the last four years,
governments in the service of U.S. efforts to destabilize and impose
regime change in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia and promote
divisions of all kinds in the region, worked to obstruct CELAC's
ability to hold any summits or even carry out work. However since
assuming the pro-tempore presidency of the organization in January
2020, the government of Mexico has worked to get CELAC and its regional
integration project back on track.
Setting the
Stage for the Sixth Summit
The stage for the
September 18 summit was set with a meeting of CELAC foreign ministers
held in July as part of celebrations in Mexico of the 238th Anniversary
of the Birth of the Liberator Simón Bolívar. In a
speech for the occasion Mexican president Andrés Manuel
López Obrador (AMLO) said Bolívar was an example
and inspiration for today. He then put forward for consideration
replacing the OAS with "a truly autonomous organization that would be
no one's lackey," arguing that "The policy of the last two centuries,
characterized by invasions to install or remove rulers at the whim of
the superpower, is already unacceptable. Let's say goodbye to
impositions, interference, sanctions, exclusions and blockades."
The Sixth summit was itself held on the heels of another
auspicious event: the September 15 celebration of the Bicentennial of
the independence of Mexico and Central America from Spain and the 211th
anniversary of the beginning of that struggle in Mexico known as the
Grito de Dolores. The Mexican government honoured Cuba's President
Miguel Díaz-Canel with an invitation to speak at that
celebration -- an acknowledgement not only of the historic ties between
Mexico and Cuba going back centuries, but of "the special case" of
Cuba, as the Mexican president called it, for having asserted its
independence by politically confronting the United States for over half
a century. In his speech Díaz-Canel recognized the important
work done by Mexico to defend CELAC's purpose of building "unity in the
diversity in Our America" in the face of attempts to impose a
neoliberal re-colonization project on the region.
Bolivarianism vs. Monroeism
These events set the
tone for the sixth summit, held three days later at the historic
Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, to deliberate on the way forward for
Latin America and the Caribbean -- whether it should be guided by the
principles associated with Bolívar's liberating project for
the Americas or the hegemonic Monroe Doctrine of the U.S. The practical
expression of this was the agenda item proposed in advance by Mexico
and seconded by Argentina, for consideration of the need for "in-depth
reform of the Organization of American States (OAS) or the creation of
a new organization to replace it." Other topics on the agenda included
discussion of urgent matters such as the need to confront the pandemic
and for everyone to acquire the needed vaccines and medications, the
problem of climate change, of the punishing unilateral coercive
measures applied to certain countries and the lack of fairness and
transparency in the way the international financial institutions do
business.
The meeting was attended by 17 heads of
state, two vice presidents and other high level representatives of
CELAC's 32 members. (Brazil suspended its participation as of 2020 by
decision of President Jair Bolsonaro.) Also in attendance were Charles
Michel, president of the European Council and Alicia Barcena, Executive
Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC). Chinese president Xi Jinping addressed the summit as
well by video link.
Virtually all members of CELAC
intervened at the plenary session, expressing a commitment to regional
integration, despite their different views on what that should involve,
to tackling common problems like the health emergency and climate
change together, and to strengthening CELAC, regardless of their stand
on the OAS and whether it should be replaced or reformed. A notable
exception was Colombia that did not send a high level representative,
and instead issued a spurious statement "rejecting" the presence of
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. It was similar in tone and content
to the many declarations churned out by the U.S. and Canada's failed
Lima Group before it descended into irrelevance and fell silent some
eight or nine months ago.
The presidents of Uruguay
and Paraguay were the only other ones who openly countered the spirit
of the summit, doing the bidding of the U.S. by singling out Cuba,
Venezuela and Nicaragua for criticism. (The U.S. had already issued an
uncouth public reminder as President Maduro was en route to Mexico that
a $15 million "reward" for him to be captured and turned over to them
was still on offer.) The two presidents were quickly put in their place
by the presidents of Cuba and Venezuela. President Maduro commented
after the summit ended that Venezuela had not gone there to throw
stones or to get provoked only to play into the hands of those hoping
to destroy CELAC by getting its members to fight one another. Instead
he called for revitalizing CELAC with a "new institutionality" and an
international policy in the service of all humanity and of
international law, and not to be a battleground of differing ideologies.
The Cuban and Venezuelan presidents also made a point of
expressing appreciation to Mexico for hosting the dialogue taking place
at the time aimed at achieving agreements between the Venezuelan
government and the country's opposition forces.
A
number of countries made special mention of Cuba, thanking it for its
assistance in fighting COVID-19. During his intervention President
Díaz-Canel offered further help in the form of
Cuban-produced vaccines. There were calls from others for lifting of
the U.S. blockade of Cuba and an end to its attacks on Venezuela and
Nicaragua. The role of the OAS and its Secretary General in instigating
the 2019 coup in Bolivia that had repercussions for CELAC was also
denounced. Peru's newly elected president Pedro Castillo made a point
of saying he brought greetings from the country's many Indigenous
peoples whose voices had always been excluded from the country's
official discourse and expressed support for concrete action to advance
the region's integration.
Future Prospects
The successful sixth summit concluded with the issuing of the
44-point Declaration of Mexico as well as five other special
declarations — on the need to put an end to the U.S. blockade
of Cuba, in support of Argentina's claim to the Malvinas Islands, on
bringing a common position to the upcoming COP26 Conference on Climate
Change and other matters of mutual concern. Many of the leaders used
the platform of the General Debate and other high level meetings held
during the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York,
including the meeting of the Group of Friends of the UN Charter, which
took place immediately following the Mexico summit, to reiterate
important stands of CELAC. In those venues they called for an end to
unilateral coercive measures, including the U.S. blockades of Cuba and
Venezuela; they called for equitable access to COVID vaccines and
treatments, more action against climate change and an end to other
injustices that go against the spirit of one humanity, one struggle
that has emerged as the clarion call at this time.
While
the thorny question of what to do about the OAS remains for future
discussions, there are favourable prospects for tackling this burning
issue for the peoples of Our America and CELAC in the coming period. An
impetus for this will be the continued failure of the U.S. to impose
regime change in countries it has targeted, as well as the defeat in
2022 of the deeply unpopular, reactionary governments of Duque in
Colombia and Bolsonaro in Brazil and possibly others, which the
peoples' forces in those countries are working towards by building
united fronts for that purpose.
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 10 - October 10, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/M5101014.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
