Cuba describes its exclusion from the Summit of the Americas as “undemocratic”

Bolivarian Alliance in front of the Summit of the Americas 2:20 Havana, Cuba (CNN) — The Cuban government attacked this Monday against the decision of the United States not to invite its country, Nicaragua or Venezuela to the Summit of the Americas, the regional meeting taking place this week in Los Angeles.

“There is not a single reason that justifies the undemocratic and arbitrary exclusion of any country in the hemisphere from this continental meeting,” condemned a statement from the Foreign Ministry. “You cannot talk about the Americas without including all the countries of the hemisphere,” the statement insisted. US officials claimed that the lack of human rights and democratic elections in those three Latin American countries led to their exclusion from the event. Cuba was invited to the Summit of the Americas for the first time in 2015, amid a rapprochement with the then Barack Obama administration, and again in 2018. The controversy over the invitations threatened to derail the summit before it began, after that the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, threatened to boycott the event if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited. This Monday, López Obrador announced that he would not attend, and that he would send a delegation instead. US officials said they invited Cuban opposition activists to represent the island in Los Angeles. But several said the Cuban government prevented them from traveling to the summit.