In protest of Cuba’s exclusion from the Summit of the Americas, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has said he is not going to attend – but the United States is not concerned.
Yesterday, the president of the South American country wrote a letter to the host nation, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, stating that the meeting can not be called the “Summit of the Americas” while “an American country is intentionally and unjustifiably neglected.”
“There has been talk of ‘lack of consensus’, but we all know that this is the veto of foreign powers,” Correa said in the letter, which does not mention a specific country.
Correa had mentioned the boycott in February, noting that members of the Bolivarian Alliance – which includes countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua – should not attend if Cuba were to be shunned. The other countries in the alliance have confirmed that they will have representatives in attendance.
United States president Barack Obama is also set to attend the summit.
The United States government has said that Cuba does not meet the democratic requirements to participate in the continental meeting.
“Obviously, we would like to see widespread participation from countries in the hemisphere, because we believe that the summit offers an opportunity for regional leaders to discuss issues that affect all citizens,” said a US State Department spokesperson according to reports.
The summit is set for the 14th and 15th of April, pulling 34 countries’ leaders to Cartagena, a Colombian city on the Caribbean coast.
On 8th March, Santos confirmed that Cuba would not be attending the summit.
“Unfortunately, the decision to invite Cuba requires a consensus, and we haven’t been able to obtain one,” the president told reporters at the time.
