The Biden administration has excluded Cuba from the preparations leading to the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and would not invite the island’s representatives to the event, the Cuban foreign affairs minister said Monday.
“The U.S. government deceives public opinion and the governments of the hemisphere by saying that it has not decided on the invitations,” Bruno Rodriguez said in a press conference in which he urged U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to disclose whether Cuba would be invited to the event.
“I must denounce that the U.S. government has decided to exclude the Republic of Cuba from the preparations for the Ninth Summit of the Americas and that it is currently exerting extreme pressure on numerous governments in the region that privately and respectfully oppose said exclusion,” he said.
He said the country hosting the summit “has no right to impose exclusions.”
A National Security Council spokesperson said that “no invitations have been issued from the White House at this time.”
Early this year, a senior administration official hinted that Cuba, Nicaragua and representatives of the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela would not be invited to the largest regional gathering of hemispheric leaders that will take place in June.
“I think the operating assumption is that we look forward to welcoming the democratically elected leaders of the Organization of American States to the summit,” the official said.
Cuba is not an active member of the OAS but was invited to attend the last two summits in Panama and Peru.
Venezuela’s seat at the hemispheric organization is filled by a representative of the opposition government led by Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. and other members recognize as the legitimate authority in the South American country.
On Sunday, Nicaragua’s government shut down the OAS office in the country, and the foreign minister, Denis Moncada, said Nicaragua was no longer part of the “diabolic” organization. Still, the OAS replied that the withdrawal would not take effect until next year.
Rodriguez, the Cuban foreign affairs minister, said an agreement to get the OAS “to certify all elections” in the hemisphere was among the proposals discussed in relation to the summit. The White House’s National Security Council and the U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to an email seeking more details about the alleged proposal.
Rodriguez also questioned if representatives of the Cuban civil society would be invited and given visas to attend a summit parallel event. Representatives of government-sponsored organizations in Cuba disrupted a session of the civil society event during the 2018 summit in Lima, Peru, chanting “down with the worms,” because members of the Cuban opposition were present. The government-backed civil society delegation also staged several “repudiation acts” against dissidents attending the 2015 summit in Panama.
The Cuban minister also bashed a regional migration agreement that U.S. and Panamanian officials recently said is expected to be adopted at the summit, calling it “racist” and “negotiated behind close doors.”
The minister lamented what he called “double standards” in U.S. migration policies toward Cuba. He said a meeting last week to discuss the subject was “positive” but questioned why the administration has not fully resumed consular services in Havana, forcing Cubans who want to emigrate to travel to Guayana instead to get their visas.
Consular services had been suspended since 2017, over the Havana syndrome affair. The U.S. Embassy in Havana said it would start issuing some immigrant visas in May on a “very limited” basis.
Representatives from both countries met in Washington last week to discuss migration for the first time since 2018, as more than 78,000 Cubans have arrived at the border with Mexico in the past six months.
Rodriguez said the two governments had committed during the meeting to uphold migration accords that were signed in the 1990’s under which the U.S. would issue 20,000 immigrant visas annually to Cuban nationals. But he asked during the press briefing when U.S. authorities would begin issuing the visas, suggesting no set date was agreed.
On Friday, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Emily Mendrala also did not respond to questions asked by reporters about concrete results coming out of the meeting. The State Department called it an example of “constructive discussion” with Cuba.
During Monday’s conference, Rodriguez repeated the Cuban government’s claims that the U.S. embargo was the “fundamental cause” of the island’s economic woes, ultimately leading to the current migration crisis. He said the U.S.’s “cynical” policies encouraged “illegal migration,” his tone contrasting with that of Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, the Cuban diplomat who led the delegation attending the talks in D.C. last week.
Fernandez de Cossio, a foreign affairs vice minister, told The Associated Press that the meeting might be a sign of improving relations under Joe Biden.
“They seem committed. They ratified that they are committed to the agreements in place,” Fernandez de Cossio said. “So we have no reason to mistrust what they’re saying, but time will tell.”
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