Nicaragua has no interest in attending the upcoming Summit of the Americas, President Daniel Ortega has said.
“We have to make ourselves respected. We cannot be asking, begging the Yankee to go to its summit. Their summit does not stimulate us,” Ortega said, speaking at a ceremony commemorating the birth of Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto Sandino –inspiration to the Ortega-led Sandinista Movement, on Wednesday.
Accusing Washington of “marginalizing Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua” and acting like a “king” that “decides when we meet and when we do not meet,” Ortega said that “from here I tell the Yankee, forget it! We are not interested in going to that summit!”
The Nicaraguan president nevertheless thanked regional leaders who have stepped to Nicaragua’s defence by threatening to boycott the Summit of the Americas if his nation, Cuba and Venezuela weren’t invited.
The region has alternatives to US dominated institutions, Ortega said, pointing to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the political and economic bloc formed in 2010 pushing for deepened regional political and economic integration.
Ortega praised the CELAC’s anti-imperialist character and values, saying the organization was born “with the strength and energy of the revolutionary processes that were multiplying in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This organization has managed to keep the US out, and has extensive ties with other powers, including Russia, China and India, he stressed.
Sinking Summit
President Biden’s first Summit of the Americas has been threatened with calamity after more than half-a-dozen regional leaders threatened to boycott the meeting in solidarity with Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.
In early May, US assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere Brian Nichols told reporters that “Cuba, Nicaragua, the Maduro regime [in Venezuela] do not respect the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and therefore I don’t expect their presence.”
The snub prompted leaders from across Central and South America and the Caribbean to warn that they would skip the summit unless Washington reversed its position. On Wednesday, a high-ranking delegation of US officials spoke with their Mexican counterparts after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he wouldn’t attend unless every country in the region was invited.
Bolivian President Luis Arce similarly threatened to skip the meeting “if the exclusion of sister nations persists.” Members of the Caribbean Community warned that some or all of its 15 members may stay home unless the US changed course. Honduran President Xiomara Castro also said she wouldn’t travel to Los Angeles either unless the three nations were invited.
The summit will be the first hosted by the US since 1994, with observers pointing to its critical importance to the Biden administration as it seeks regional support on issues ranging from the crisis at the US’s southern border to the narcotics trade and climate change.
Cuba, which took part in the summit for the first time in 2015, has slammed Washington’s position ahead of the 2022 meeting, with Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio stressing that “if a country does not have the capacity to ensure everyone’s participation, it should not assume the commitment to hold a summit on its territory.”
Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista Movement has been a pain in the neck for Washington for decades, first between 1979 and 1990, when the Sandinistas overthrew the US-backed dictator running the country, and then again from 2006 onward, when Ortega won presidential elections.
The Trump administration labeled Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela the “troika of tyranny,” the “triangle of terror” and the “three stooges of socialism” over the countries' resistance to US dictates. The Biden administration has not used such brash wording, but largely continued its predecessor’s polices in relation to the three nations.