Just heard this. Cuba and Venezuela will not be invited to the Conference of the Americas.

[Samrob]

Why not? Especially at this time of oil crisis. Disappointed in this administration for not including both. Now Mexico has bowed out because we reuse to invite them. Not the smartest diplomacy to me. Just more political pandering to the Right in this country. That will get us no where.

[Magoo48]

1. I hope we weren't behind the snub.

[brooklynite]

2. "Strengthening democracies across the Americas"

“We have a responsibility also to speak up and speak out collectively when we see governments weakening democracy at home, clamping down on the free press, threatening political opponents, undermining the independence of the courts,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said May 3.

The United States is dedicated to upholding its own commitments, including listening to the recommendations of diverse voices and supporting democracy, transparency and good governance. All are priorities during the Summit for Democracy’s Year of Action.

Other countries, such as Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru, also made commitments and set goals ahead of the summit.

Their commitments focus on upholding democratic values, promoting human rights and fighting the climate crisis.

https://share.america.gov/strengthening-democracies-across-americas/

Perhaps Cuba and Venezuela weren't willing to make the commitment?

[Magoo48]

7. It is hypocritically selective and stinks of exclusivity based on interferences we were party to.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

3. It was us

[link:https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-excludes-cuba-venezuela-nicaragua-americas-summit-sources-2022-06-06/|]

The Biden administration has made a final decision to exclude the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas, people familiar with the matter said, despite threats from Mexico’s president to skip the gathering unless all countries in the Western Hemisphere were invited.

[iemanja]

4. Who else?

[malaise]

5. Some CARICOM countires are boycotting as well

not our local tool.
The US does not get to decide who is in the Americas.

[wnylib]

6. The decision of Cuba, Nicaraugua, and Venezuela

is due to their civil rights record.

Mexico is boycotting if all countries are not invited.

It is human rights issues that are driving so many people from those countries to cross through Mexico in migrant caravans to the US.

My guess is that excluding them from the conference is intended to put pressure on those countries to clean up their act in order to stop the constant flow of people that overwhelms us at the US border.

Biden said early after taking office that his goal is to treat the problem at the countries of origin.

[AntivaxHunters]

11. lol their civil rights record?

Has anyone checked into the civil rights record of this country lately?
I mean HELLO!

It's not civil rights records driving people to this country from their country of orgin.
It's the fact that we as a country have been involved in disrupting said countries for decades.
We've torn those countries apart for 50 plus years.
Jeez.

[malaise]

17. Just laugh

or cry

Do as I say but not as I do

[wnylib]

19. Yes, it is very true that we have no standing in the world

on civil rights due to our own problems with it. We are also rapidly losing - or have already lost - any standing regarding issues of internal violence and civil unrest.

[wnylib]

18. I was only quoting the reasons given

by the Biden administration

While it is true that the US in the 1950s under Eisenhower created problems in Nicaragua (United Fruit, etc) and other Latin American countries, and in Cuba both before and after their revolution, current conditions in Central America are driving people to flee from there. Cuba is a separate situation. It has been nearly obligatory in the US (except under Obama) to villify the Cuban government ever since Batista was overthrown.

Conditions in Central America are driving children and adults to flee. The countries are overrun by gang violence compounded by corrupt governments that do nothing about the gangs since the officials benefit from using the gangs to intimidate the population. There are also drug revenues involved. When children and their families have their lives threatened if the children refuse to join gangs, the parents flee with the children or send the children away on their own. They join up with others who are fleeing and form caravans for mutual protection.

That's what VP Harris went to Central America for, to persuade the governments of Central America to deal with the problems there instead of shipping their problems to our southern border.

[róisín_dubh]

24. Creating problems, lol.

That’s an extremely mild way of putting it.

[wnylib]

25. Well, I am not about to get into the length and time

that it would take to cover the entire history of US relations with Latin America.

I can remember some of the issues during my lifetime - United Fruit's backing by our State Department and the connection between United Fruit and members of the Eisenhower administration, the US backing of Batista and the subsequent Cuban Revolution, the conditions in Cuba that led to overthrowing Batista, Nixon as VP being protested during a trip through Latin America when the people shouted and carried signs saying, "Yankee go home."

And that doesn't even include Pinochet in Chile, the US in Panama, etc.

As I said, too much time and space to cover it all.

But feel free to do it yourself if you like. I am not disputing US human rights violations in Latin America (and elsewhere), nor am I whitewashing them. There is just too much history there to cover it all.

[róisín_dubh]

31. I just find it very rich...

Biden chose civil rights. Does he not have an expert who could point out that we’ve barely ratified international human rights treaties? Or that we refuse to acknowledge the Inter-American Court of Human Rights? We should keep our mouth shut, because to Latin Americans, we are the biggest hypocrites on the planet.
There’s also the funding of genocidal regimes, but we can’t care about that history (or teach it even). Because we looked away when our money funded the ethnic cleansing of brown people.

But as you said, it’s too long a history and quite frankly, I’m off contract at the moment from teaching this particular history.

[AntivaxHunters]

26. Ike?

Try everyone who's come after him too.
We destabilized countries in Central America & South America with intention of toppling their governments. What do you think would happen?

You're worried about drugs yet we still don't even have legalized weed in this country. You want to end drug problems coming in from south of the border? Start with the decriminalization of illicit drugs like Canada just did in British Columbia. You take away the profits of cartels and they they decline fast. But instead we're locking people up, often time for decades, because they committed their 3rd strike for having a few ounces of weed on them.

Ya, miss me with that.

British Columbia to decriminalize small amounts of cocaine, heroin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/31/british-columbia-decriminalize-cocaine-opioids-meth/

TORONTO — The possession of small amounts of several illicit drugs, including cocaine and opioids such as fentanyl or heroin, will be temporarily decriminalized in British Columbia, the federal government said Tuesday, in what it cast as a “bold” step to “turn the tide” in the province’s overdose crisis.

Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s minister of mental health and addictions, said Ottawa had granted the provincial government’s request for an exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for three years, starting Jan. 31, 2023.

As of that date, adults 18 and older in Canada’s westernmost province will be allowed to carry a cumulative total of up to 2.5 grams of some drugs for personal use without being arrested or charged, or having their drugs confiscated. The illicit drugs include opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

The trafficking, production, exportation and importation of those drugs will remain illegal, as will the possession of any quantity of those drugs at airports, near child-care facilities and primary and secondary schools, or by members of the military.

[wnylib]

27. Good grief. I did not say that

I am worried about drugs. FFS, I was posting about the reasons why we have so many Central Americans fleeing to the southern border of the US to escape threats from gangs in their own countries.

I also was NOT denying that the US has overturned governments and supported tyrants for the sake of US business interests. I was NOT limiting US relations with Latin America to Ike's administration.

You made lot of assumptions.

I have been involved for 3 years in getting aid to migrants at the border, talking to people who have been there delivering the aid, and discussing the causes of the migrants fleeing their home countries. I described in my post the current reasons why they are fleeing in caravans to the US. I was not giving a comprehensive history course on US relations with Latin American countries.

Read my #25.

[roody]

12. Then El Salvador should be excluded..

...

[wnylib]

20. I would think so, too, but I don't know

what agreements El Salvador might have made in cooperating with VP Harris' attempts to get Central American governments to cooperate with us in addressing gang problems there. Perhaps there is an agreement that El Salvador is cooperating with.

[48656c6c6f20]

14. Because of human rights?

I'm more inclined to believe skin color and inherent colonialism plays a bigger part.

[wnylib]

21. I don't have time or space to give a background on

The Central American gangs and government corruption that refuses to curb the gangs. Those conditions are the drivers behind the huge numbers of Central Americans forming caravans to cross Mexico and seek asylum in the US. VP Harris has traveled to Central America to try to get cooperation from governments there to deal with the problem.

It's a bit more complex than White vs. Brown, although the racism toward brown immigrants is real, too.

[mathematic]

16. Mexico is not boycotting and will be attending.

They're sending their foreign minister.

[wnylib]

22. Thanks. I had not heard that. The last I knew, Obrador

was threatening to boycott.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

8. And all three states, in addition to showing complete contempt

for human rights and democratic values in their own countries, have also shown their autocratic characters by fully backing Vladimir Putin's genocidal war on Ukraine.

Such actions have diplomatic consequences and rightfully so.

[DFW]

15. Backing Putin is a far better reason to put out there than civil rights at home

Yes, the domestic situation in Venezuela sucks, but it sucks in Honduras as El Salvador as well, and Guatemala isn't much better. And how many unarmed innocents have been murdered by our police? Granted, it's not due to some kind of perverted national policy, but give us another four years of a Trump-like president, and we could get there easily.

But publicly backing Putin's invasion of the Ukrainians would be a line in the sand for me. Sure, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez owed some dues in Moscow's direction, but over a decade has passed since their word was the last word.

[wnylib]

23. Agree that the position of those countries

regarding Putin is reason enough and a far better reason than civil rights since the US has no standing internationally on that issue.

But the media sources that I checked, e.g. CNN, were saying that the Biden administration is citing civil rights as the issue.

[DFW]

38. If that is what they are saying, I say they have not thought it through

All our very public (and publicized) killings, both by police and by armed civilian loonies, armed with the government's blessing, not to mention the occasional Supreme Court-sanctioned execution of a wrongly convicted person, leave a gaping hole for countries with lousy human rights records to point the finger right back at us and say, "look who's talking! YOU accuse US of mistreating/not protecting our citizens?"

[wnylib]

40. They are also citing "authoritarian governments."

Adding on edit: I think this exclusion might be intended to be leverage to get cooperation regarding Putin and possibly also the migrant issue at our southern border. Just a guess.

[crickets]

37. +1

[roody]

44. The 60 year embargo on Cuba has

nothing to do with Putin.

[tritsofme]

9. I think I trust the judgment of President Biden over random internet guy.

[róisín_dubh]

32. Well you probably shouldn't.

Random internet people are sometimes experts in their field. I don’t know about wnylib, but I *am* an expert in this area.

[tritsofme]

33. My reply was directed to the absurd OP, not wynlib's thoughtful response.

[róisín_dubh]

35. Didn't suggest it was directed at wnylib.

Just that you've got no idea who are experts in what field and who aren't, do you?

[tritsofme]

36. It's certainly not this OP.

When people brag that they are so much more insightful than President Biden’s foreign policy team, I get more Dunning-Krueger vibes than “expert” ones.

[AntivaxHunters]

10. How long are we going to keep

this stupid ass embargo on Cuba up for?
It's the year 2022.
Other countries ended this decades ago but in 'Murica, it's alive & well.
Sick & tired of us as a country doing stupid shit and harming people for absolutely reason.

[ripcord]

13. When is Cuba going to deal with the human rights abuses?

The Cuban government continues to repress and punish virtually all forms of dissent and public criticism. At the same time, Cubans continue to endure a dire economic crisis, which impacts their social and economic rights.

In July, thousands of Cubans took to the streets in landmark demonstrations protesting long-standing restrictions on rights, scarcity of food and medicines, and the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The government responded with brutal repression.

The government employs arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others.

Security officers rarely present arrest warrants to justify detaining critics. In some cases, detainees are released after receiving official warnings, which prosecutors may use in subsequent criminal trials to show a pattern of what they call “delinquent” behavior.

Over 1,000 people, mostly peaceful demonstrators or bystanders, were detained during the July protests, Cuban rights groups reported. Officers prevented people from protesting or reporting on the protests, arresting critics and journalists as they headed to demonstrations or limiting their ability to leave their homes. Many were held incommunicado for days or weeks, violently arrested or beaten, and subjected to ill-treatment during detention.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/cuba

I am amazed at how many on this board support this abusive and authoritarian government.

[EX500rider]

29. Heck we used to have one poster who insisted Cuba was a functioning Democracy

Because of some low level voting for Block Commissar or something....lol

"But they have free health care!"
Yes and the trains ran on time in Fascist Italy too.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

34. And most people there are still poor

So much for the "glorious revolution"

[roody]

42. Of course they are poor.

60 years of sanctions from the US.

[Kid Berwyn]

28. President Kennedy explained the situation.

I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

President John F. Kennedy, 24 October 1963.

—————————————————

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years… and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend – at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.

Senator John F. Kennedy, 6 October 1960

[Xolodno]

30. Just...why?

Why are we still using the Cold War playbook? I was at a museum over the weekend and a couple of youngsters remarked how they just finished studying the Cold War in school. I remarked that they made me feel old as I lived through it and even saw the fall of the Berlin Wall. Their response; "Wow!".

We are using 20th century solutions for 21st century problems. It's not going to work.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

41. Ask the Ukrainians.

[Elessar Zappa]

39. Why should they be invited?