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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">GRANMA/Díaz-Canel: Remarks to the Cuban civil society excluded from the Summit of the Americas</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">June 8, 2022<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_l49y8k9q0" alt="image.png" width="392" height="261"><br><br><p><span>Comrades all;</span></p>
<p><span>Allow me to begin with words that were told more than one century ago:</span></p>
<div><p><span>“When a strong nation wants to fight a battle with
another, it demands allegiance and service from those nations dependent
upon it. The first thing a nation does to dominate another is to
separate it from other nations.”</span></p><p><span>This was written by
Jose Marti 130 years ago after attending the Monetary Conference, a
feast purposely designed by a burgeoning United States for the young
republics of Our America.</span></p><p><span>Martí, who had been
accredited by the government of Uruguay, on behalf of which he had been
acting as Consul General in New York since 1887, apparently was almost
excluded based on unexplainable delays and deceitful excuses by the
State Department.</span></p><p><span>That Conference failed and it is
affirmed that the Cuban decisively contributed to that, for he later on
wrote a profound and demolishing analysis dictated by his own conscience
on the dangers Our America would be exposed to should it accept the
monetary union.</span></p><p><span>In forthright terms, without
euphemisms of any sort, Martí defined in those lines the inability of
the United States to understand its southern neighbors. And I quote:
“They believe in the incomparable superiority of ‘the Anglo-Saxon race
over the Latin’. They believe in the inferiority of the Blacks, whom
they enslaved yesterday and vex today; and of the Indians, whom they are
exterminating. They believe that the Spanish American nations are made
up principally of Indians and Blacks.</span></p><p><span>Until the
United States knows more about Spanish America, and respects it
more,-although with the incessant, urgent, and wise explanations of our
people and resources it could come to respect it-can this country invite
Spanish America to a union that would be honest and useful to Spanish
America? Would it be convenient for Spanish America to enter into this
economic and political union with the United States? End of quote.</span><br><span>The questions asked by Marti carry the answers in themselves.</span></p><p><span>Few
texts are more visionary on the US policy towards our nations in the
Americas, a policy that the unlimited ambition of the empire has frozen
in time, when it refused to listen to the voices that yield to it.</span></p><p><span>Those
who may doubt it can compare those words with the exclusionary
conception of the Ninth Summit of the Americas and they will realize they
are still absolutely valid.</span><br><span>The philosophical dogma that
has always accompanied that insatiable ambition is the so-called
Manifest Destiny, a deeply-rooted racist and supremacist belief whose
leading concept relies on the interventionist and unacceptable Monroe
Doctrine.</span></p><p><span>Without renouncing any of these two
concepts, the US Government convened the Ninth Hemispheric Summit in the
city of Los Angeles, with discriminatory attendance and insufficient
regional representation.</span></p><p><span>In the case of Cuba, the
exclusion was not only against the government, but also against the
representatives of the civil society and social actors, including our
youths. The United States is no longer satisfied with deciding who and
how should be the Cuban government. Now they attempt to determine who
the representatives of the civil society are; who are the legitimate
social actors and who are not.</span></p><p><span>Allow me to revisit history, for it usually hides so many lessons.</span><br><span>Between
January and February of 1928, Cuba hosted the Sixth Pan-American
Conference, one of the bad seeds of the OAS and the current summits of
the Americas. The president of the Island at that moment was Gerardo
Machado, a henchman of sad memory who was defeated by a popular uprising
in 1933.</span></p><p><span>There can be no serious historian ignoring
that “Cuba’s election as the venue of that conference was a result of
the status of subordination of the Island to the United States. We were a
protectorate of the Yankees. Thus, invitations were not even sent from
Havana. They were distributed by the then Chargé d’affaires of Cuba in
Washington. </span></p></div>
<p><span><img src="http://en.granma.cu/file/img/2022/06/medium/f0031625.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Photo: </strong><span>Cubaminrex</span></span></p><div><p><span>Despite
that subordination that Machado and his team decorated with fervent
acts of genuflection, the then president of the United States, Calvin
Coolidge, arrived on board of a warship and the photos taken at that
time show him, accompanied by his wife, not by the side of his Cuban
counterpart, but a few meters ahead of him. </span></p><p><span>The
order given by the owners of the “backyard” to those responsible for the
Cuba policy was to avoid any uncomfortable debate. The recent
interventions in Haiti and Nicaragua had heated the atmosphere, so it
was necessary to avoid the discussions that might happen to be
disturbing for the imperial ears.</span></p><p><span>Some people say
that, on a previous trip to the United States, and for the purpose of
being chosen as the host, Machado had promised Coolidge to avoid any
statement or denunciation and offer the most servile support to the
North Americans.</span></p><p><span>The Cuban ambassador in Washington
had the despicable honor to please the powerful visitor by singing
praises to the intervention, something that is still an insult:</span></p><p><span>“We
cannot join the general choir saying ‘no intervention’ –he said-
because the word ‘intervention’ in my country has been a word of glory, a
word of honor, a word of triumph. It has been a word of freedom; it
has been the independence.”</span></p><p><span>The organizers of the
Summit of the Americas of 2022 would gladly invite a government like the
one that received Coolidge, as was done 94 years ago with the
undisputed dictator Gerardo Machado, who was defeated five years later
by the Revolution of 1933.</span></p><p><span>But that was the Cuba that
disappeared forever from the map of political subordination with the
triumph of the Revolution of 1959.</span></p><p><span>I refer you to the
historical speech delivered by the Army General and Leader of the Cuban
Revolution at the Summit of the Americas held in Panama in 2015. With
the whole time taken from us to take the floor at former Summits, Raúl
laid down the principles that would ensure a more fruitful relation
between the two Americas. And I quote:</span></p><p><span>“Hemispheric
relations, in my opinion, must change profoundly, in particular in the
political, economic and cultural spheres, to focus on developing
mutually beneficial ties and cooperation to serve the interests of all
our nations and their stated objectives, in accordance with
International Law and respect for the exercise of self-determination
and sovereign equality”. End of quote.</span></p></div>
<p><span><img src="http://en.granma.cu/file/img/2022/06/medium/f0031631.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Photo: </strong><span>Cubaminrex</span></span></p><div><p><span>Cuba changed, Our America is changing, but the empire does not change.</span><br><br><span>Regarding
the exclusionary and discriminatory character of the event to be held
on June 8 to 10 in Los Angeles, the revolutionary government made a
strong statement.</span></p><p><span>We have known of the rejection
provoked by that opportunistic selectivity in most of the governments of
the region, as well as the clear and firm position adopted by several
of them; and the notable absences to the event, as an expression of
rejection of exclusions.</span></p><p><span>These confrontations between interventionist policies and sovereign policies have also historical antecedents.</span></p><p><span>In
1994, when the government of the United States convened the first of
these summits and excluded Cuba, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz
summarized in a phrase the essence of the imperial arrogance in a single
phrase: “How much cowardice, mediocrity and political weakness is truly
reflected by this exclusion!”. End of quote.</span></p><p><span>The US
government of the moment, living through the euphoria of the alleged end
of the Cold War, tried to use our most cherished symbols to lure again
the nations of America into an already forgotten recolonization project;
the FTAA.</span></p><p><span>And it dared to describe the Summit of the
Americas as “Simon Bolivar’s dream come true”. “They just forgot to say
it was also Marti’s dream come true”, answered Fidel from a historical
meeting held at the Main Hall of the University of Havana where for the
first time he coincided with the young and already impressive Bolivarian
politician Hugo Chávez.</span></p><p><span>Hardly 11 years later, in
another historical event that exalted the Summit of the Peoples over the
Summit of Heads of States, where he cried his well-remember phrase “The
hell with the FTAA…!” in Mar del Plata, Hugo Chávez had written the
epitaph of the project to re-colonize Our America. The dreams of Bolivar
and Marti were becoming true.</span></p><p><span>The list of the
excluded was drafted against this Latin America that calls things by
their names and asks no permission to exercise its sovereign rights.</span><br><span>We
are honored to head that list, together with the leaders from Venezuela
and Nicaragua and you, who are genuine representatives of our people.
We feel equally honored by the gallant solidarity by Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, Lucho Arce, Xiomara Castro, the Caribbean leaders who have
emphatically rejected exclusions and others who will certainly do it
during the Summit.</span></p><p><span>Within a few hours we will be able
to confirm what will be achieved or what proposals will be made in Los
Angeles beyond the inaugural fanfare and the photo of the hosting
President with those who will attend. The media show intended for the
US domestic politicking will not be able to hide the lack of true
interest on the part of that government in attending to the most
pressing and serious problems of the peoples of Latin America and the
Caribbean.</span></p><p><span>You may well check the official documents
and statements by politicians and officials from the US government
during the last few years. The scarce references to our part of the
world reflect the profound misunderstanding of the current realities of a
region that has its own identity, whose nations have accumulated
cravings for justice, suffer from underdevelopment and increasing
inequality and refuse to bear for any longer the continued plundering of
their natural wealth and the increased exploitation of their workers.</span></p><p><span>Neither
do they bear pressure nor interference by the United States, which are
aimed at forcing sovereign governments to implement policies that
benefit the great transnationals, in an attempt to demand obedience and
impose punishments when they fail to succeed. They refuse the role
played by the institutions created by the United States, such as the OAS
and the rest of the hemispheric domination instruments.</span></p><p><span>None of the above appears on the agenda of the meeting in Los Angeles.<br></span><br><span>The
regional migration issue is inextricably linked to development and,
above all, with underdevelopment. It is closely linked to the global
capitalist model and the advancement of neoliberalism, whose economic
policies create more marginalization, social instability, and
unemployment, lack of health services, unaffordable and insufficient
education systems and disintegration of the social fabric of
communities.</span></p><p><span>Growing sectors of the population will
keep on looking for the satisfactions of their needs and the realization
of their dreams of prosperity in the advanced economies of the North.
The present reality confirms the old idea that, if development does not
start once and for all to spill over the South, underdevelopment will
advance at greater speed to the North.</span></p><p><span>Repressive
formulas as those outlined in the document imposed by the United States
for the meeting are not the answer. They might temporarily mitigate
uncontrolled migration, but they will not solve the multiplicity of
causes and conditions that provoke irregular migration.</span></p><p><span>In
the case of Cuba, the US government has applied for four years a policy
oriented to encouraging irregular migration. As a rule it accepts
those who arrive in its borders by irregular means and grants them the
privilege of obtaining a permanent residence by virtue of legally
established formulas only applicable to Cubans; it shut down the legal
ways to migrate and maintains a policy of economic warfare aimed at
undermining the living standards of the people. This is what can be
called a perfect recipe to encourage irregular migration.</span></p></div>
<p><span><img src="http://en.granma.cu/file/img/2022/06/medium/f0031637.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Photo: </strong><span>Cubaminrex</span></span></p><div><p><span>However,
a thorough discussion of all these issues at the summit in these days
is not envisaged. Obviously no effective result whatsoever is to be
expected to solve a problem that will continue to affect our societies
and hemispheric relations.</span></p><p><span>Neither should it be
expected that any fruitful discussion on the transfer of technology, without
which it will be very difficult to expect any boost to the development
of the region.</span></p><p><span>Increased connectivity and internet
access in all communities is something positive. However, if these
efforts are only limited to the promotion of captive markets for
commercial advertisement and the advice and encouragement of unceasing
consumption, their benefits for Latin America and the Caribbean will be
null. The winners will be, of course, the big commercial companies.</span></p><p><span>If
these are aimed at establishing technological platforms that contribute
to saw in the communities, particularly among young people, the ideas
generated in the ideological laboratories of the United States to
promote certain behaviors and visions of the world, that stimulate
political apathy and social alienation; incentivize selfishness; promote
racism, narcissism and aggressiveness, the result will be extremely
dangerous. It will be equally so if they are destined to promote lies,
banality, dishonest politicking, slanders and media for hire.</span></p><p><span>If
the intention is to exercise greater influence and control over our
societies through the monopoly of technological information platforms in
just a few hands, the obvious goal is the consolidation of the
hegemonic and imperialist domain using new methods.</span></p><p><span>One
of the topics that are most repeated by the spokespersons of the United
States when promoting the summit that will take place in these days is
the alleged defense of democracy, which they deceitfully put on a level
with the promotion of capitalism, as if they were one and the same
thing, when they are in fact opposite concepts.</span></p><p><span>Nothing
in the past and recent history of the United States –or in its current
behavior in the hemisphere- suggests that democracy or respect for human
rights are true priorities of its regional foreign policy. When they so declare it is because they act with dishonesty and they know it.</span></p><p><span>Looking
only at the last 50 years, there has been a notoriously absolute
involvement and connivance between the United States and the bloodiest
and most repressive regimes ever known in this continent, with which
they have practiced assassination, disappearances, massacres, tortures
and extra judicial executions in the most shameless way.</span></p><p><span>To
suppose that our peoples have no memory is a mistake and an act of
disdain. More important still is the fact that the US government lacks
the moral authority to speak about democracy when it is incapable of
defending and promoting it within its own territory and for its own
citizens.</span></p><p><span>It is not honest to speak in defense of
democratic principles when, by virtue of recent federal laws, the US
diplomatic system allows for the unlimited financing of electoral
campaigns and the performance of politicians, the purchasing of
politicians, which is equal to the purchasing of leaders.</span></p><p><span>It
is not sincere to preach democracy in the region when there is an
increase of legislation in numerous states of that country that
restrict the right to vote and the possibility to exercise it,
particularly if voters are low-income persons, belong to any of the so-called ethnic minorities or live in neighborhoods considered marginal.</span></p><p><span>It
is difficult to be a human rights advocate on behalf of a government
that is not capable of guaranteeing the right to essential health
services in the richest and most powerful country on Earth; that doesn’t
have, or has ever intended to acquire the political and legal tools
that might prevent the indiscriminate sales of weapons of war to the
people, with the consequent and increasing cost in innocent human lives,
among them children, for whom going to school has become dangerous.</span></p><p><span>The
promotion of democracy and human rights is only a pipe dream in a
political system where the interest of producers and traders of war
weapons are a priority over the life of children and the rights to
health and education.</span></p><p><span>It is not honest to preach
about human rights when that government allows for the increase of
racism and the trends of intolerance and white supremacy; when the rates
of police and judicial abuse against Afro-descendants continue to be
the rule.</span></p><p><span>There is no honesty either when the
incarceration or detention of children and teenagers reach unacceptably
high figures. According to data provided by the American Civil
Liberties Association, on any day of the year at least 60 thousand
children and youths under the age of 18 are being locked up or placed
under detention in prisons or juvenile detention centers.</span><br><span>According
to the Prison Policy Initiative, many of them have not even committed a
crime and thousands remain behind bars for non-criminal offenses. The
United States is the only country of the hemisphere where youths under
the age of 18 are sentenced to life without probation.</span></p><p><span>With
this deplorable trajectory, the US government dares to suggest that the
criteria used to invite and exclude countries of the hemisphere from
the summit meeting were the standards of democracy and human rights.
This pretext is an insult to the intelligence and common sense of all
the others.</span></p><p><span>With the previously planned design and
the documents prepared, it is already known that nothing will be
discussed or adopted in relation to economic and social inequality in
the region or marginalization, even within the United States. It is
already known that there will be no discussion about the increasing
problem of the judicialization of politics to sabotage the popular will
and the governments elected with the support of the most humble sectors
of the population; nor will there be any discussion about the corporate
efforts of big transnationals to corrupt the governments of the region.</span></p><p><span>There
will be no deep analysis of the reasons why the United States and Latin
America are among the regions most affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.</span><br><span>None
of the documents presented by the State Department was intended to make
progress, with concrete actions, in the struggle against racism, in
favor of women’s and children’s rights and palliate the uncertain status
of migrants.</span></p><p><span>The progressive climate change and
natural disasters that greatly threaten the countries of the region will
remain void of practical measures.</span><br><span>Terrorism, including
State terrorism and the manipulation of this issue for political
purposes is not part of the agenda. There will be no confirmation of
the Argentinean right over the Malvinas, or the right of Puerto Rico to
independence.</span></p><p><span>The documents that are to be approved
include no reference whatsoever to unilateral coercive measures and
their implementation against countries of the region as a weapon of
political pressure. They will include no ratification of the region’s
unanimous claim, with the almost absolute support of the international
community, calling for an end to the criminal blockade suffered by the
Cuban people for 63 years now.</span></p><p><span>However, neither the
voice of Cuba nor the solidarity with Cuba could be silenced. We know
that the rejection of the economic blockade will be heard there and that
the US government is very much aware that this feeling is shared
throughout this entire hemisphere.</span></p><p><span>Several months ago
it became evident that the opportunity to take advantage of the
presence of regional leaders in Los Angeles to hold a true discussion of
many of the problems that affect our society would be missed. It could
have been otherwise.</span></p><p><span>The US government, with its huge
economic and technological power and great influence could have made a
transcendental contribution in that direction. That required, of course,
a dose of humility, self-criticism, recognition of the scars that have
marked our history; a modicum of solidarity and less selfishness; and
sincere acknowledgement that times have changed.</span></p><p><span>Inter-American
communication and interactions are necessary. There must be spaces for
dialogue and cooperation among those of us who live to the south of Rio
Bravo and the nations to the North. But this must be based on respect.
The Outstanding Hero of the Americas, Benito Juárez, summarized it
magnificently, and I quote: “Among individuals as well as among nations,
respect for the other’s right is peace”, end of quote.</span></p><p><span>We,
the Latin American and Caribbean peoples do not consider ourselves as
the back yard or a front yard of anyone. This is an outrageous notion
that we reject. With the creation of the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC), the countries of our region reaffirmed our
unrestricted adherence to the defense of sovereignty, independence and
self-determination.</span></p><p><span>While promoting the necessary
regional unity and integration, we established our commitment to respect
diversity amidst ourselves. This region is shared by both big and small
countries; those that are rich in natural resources and those that do
not have them; those that export hydrocarbons or electricity and those
that import it; the big food producers and those that depend on foreign
trade to meet their needs. Besides, there are Small Island States that
deserve a preferential and differentiated treatment in their
international economic relations.</span></p><p><span>In some cases we
have profound ideological differences, which have not prevented the
development of relations, and even cooperation, whether to solve serious
political conflicts or contribute to solve profound social problems and
offer services to the populations that are most in need.</span></p><p><span>In 2014 we unanimously committed in Havana to observe the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.</span><br><span>The
United States could cooperate with this vast, rich and complex region
and concert efforts to face the big challenges of today’s world. But
this must be done with absolute respect for sovereign equality.</span></p><p><span>Times
have changed and Our America does not accept the imposition of the
interests of imperialism, as much as it does not accept that our region
is used in the conflicts that the United States has with those whom it
identifies as strategic rivals in other parts of the world.</span></p><p><span>Our
people have reasons enough to wonder: Why are we paying attention to an
event that points to results that are hardly transcendental, with
notable absences, from which the United States decided to exclude
beforehand several countries of the region?</span></p><p><span>The
problem is that we cannot ignore an additional effort, however failed,
to reinstate the Monroe Doctrine; nor can we stop denouncing the farce
of convening once again the countries of the region for a neocolonial
show. A The United State has the ability to avoid the presence of Cuba
in Los Angeles, but does not have the power to silence our voice or
silence the truth.</span></p><p><span>Our people have been aware of
these issues. They are well informed, as very few people are, and
understand the current situation facing the hemisphere. They participate
in the country’s foreign policy and are the guarantor of the national
sovereignty and independence in the face of the US hegemonic ambition.
They also have a vocation for international solidarity and a
well-deserved right to receive updated information about the current
developments in the region. </span></p><p><span>A Summit of the peoples
will also be in session in Los Angeles on June 8, 9 and 10. Reports
indicate that this will be a true forum of debate and confrontation of
ideas, with a broad agenda, reflecting the most urgent concerns of the
region as a whole, with the participation of social organizations, trade
unions, youth groups, community associations and persons with a deep
social awareness in general.</span></p><p><span>There is every
indication that a true and transcendental political event will take
place there, which is where we regret not being able to have significant
in-presence participation. We know that the contributions of Cubans
would have been important, that it would have been an important
experience for you to have listened to problems and approaches of
thousands of very diverse participants that will attend the forum.</span></p><p><span>At
a moment like the one facing today the Latin American and Caribbean
peoples, it is only sensible to go back to Marti. His everlasting essay
entitled “Our America” has an amazing validity. The Apostle included in
it lessons for all times, when he said:</span></p><p><span>“…The urgent
duty of our America is to show herself as she is, united in soul and
intent, fast overcoming the crushing weight of her past, and stained
only with the fertilizing blood shed by hands that do battle against
ruins, or by veins opened by our former masters. The disdain of the
formidable neighbor who does not know her is the greatest danger that
faces our America. It is urgent —for the day of the visit draws
close—that her neighbor comes to know her, and quickly, so he will not
disdain her.</span></p><p><span>Thank you, very much.</span><br><span>Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez</span><br><span>8 de junio de 2022</span></p></div>
<p><span><a href="https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2022-06-08/remarks-to-the-cuban-civil-society-excluded-from-the-summit-of-the-americas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2022-06-08/remarks-to-the-cuban-civil-society-excluded-from-the-summit-of-the-americas</a></span></p>
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