LOS ANGELES, June 11 (NNN-XINHUA) — The US-hosted Summit of the Americas concluded in downtown Los Angeles on Friday amid protests against the exclusion of some Latin American countries and human rights violations, among others.
The exclusion of three nations — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — has led to questions about the legitimacy of the event overall, and increased the presence of critics.
Attending the summit were many heads of state from throughout the Americas, who gathered to discuss key issues affecting their countries’ and the region’s future, such as trade, immigration, economic development, climate change, post-COVID recovery and more.
Some issues, such as immigration, trade imbalances and political ideology, are thornier and more challenging and are likely to affect the tone of relations between member nations. At stake, many felt, is the US influence in the region.
At the summit, US President Joe Biden pledged to tackle escalating levels of mass migration and economic depression that are plaguing the countries south of the US border and announced 1.9 billion US dollars in corporate investment alone for beleaguered Latin America.
But skepticism remains as some countries felt the United States is not doing enough to help their closest allies and neighbors, including President Ivan Duque of Colombia who pointed out that his country actually received less than 30 percent of the international pledges made last year to help his country absorb the massive influx of Venezuelan refugees.
“We need to match pledges with disbursements,” Duque insisted.
Controversy and skepticism arose even before the summit convened, due to the US refusal to invite leaders of countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela on the grounds that democracy for each nation’s citizenry was an “essential ingredient” for the future of the region.
This stance prompted some key heads of state to refuse to attend, including those of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Bolivia, who sent representatives instead.
“It shows the deep divisions in the continent,” said Martha Barcena, former Mexican ambassador to the United States. The leaders who decided against attending, Barcena said, are “challenging US influence, because US influence has been diminishing in the continent.”
The lack of faith that traditional leadership would take the steps necessary to solve the mounting problems and inequities in the region prompted activist, worker, women, minority, academic and other changemaker groups to take matters into their own hands.
They held their own concurrent international planning and work session, dubbed the People’s Summit, less than a mile away at the Los Angeles Trade-Tech College.
“We will not tolerate or stand by while arguments about humanitarianism are used to exclude countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela when human rights abuses are happening to our people here in the US on a daily basis,” Jose Cortes of the Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition (ANSWR) told Xinhua.
Citizen and activist groups around the United States and abroad echoed those sentiments and attended the well-organized three-day summit in record numbers to challenge the inequities of the status quo.
The People’s Summit addressed issues such as the rights of marginalized populations such as women, people of color and immigrants, and did a deep dive to address other urgent issues in need of immediate attention.
Those include adequate housing resources, Medicare for All, reproductive rights and justice, migrant rights and the right to human dignity, “all of which are under attack under the current patriarchal and imperial colonial system we live in,” contended Cindy Weisner, executive director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.
“Often times we are fed with this narrative that the US is this bastion of freedom and democracy when in fact it oppresses and exploits too,” Cortes told Xinhua.
“I’m in full protest of the United States of America … and the President of the United States, because this country is an illegal occupation of stolen native lands,” said Heron Carrillo, a People’s Summit attendee and strong proponent of the rights of indigenous peoples.
He pointed out that historically, virtually all of what is now the US west of the Mississippi River, excluding only the three Pacific Northwest states, used to be ruled by Mexico.
Other attendees of the People’s Summit were motivated by inclusion and fairness. “If you want to have a summit of the Americas you need to do it right and have all the countries of the Americas at the table,” Nino Brown, an African American organizer with the Party for Social Liberation and with the ANSWR, told Xinhua.
Anything else would be hypocritical, he said, “since the United States struggles to maintain its own democracy.” — NNN-XINHUA
