Latest update February 10th, 2025 2:25 PM
Lift Cuba embargo – Colombia tells America
– Pleads for help for Haiti
By Neil Marks in Cartagena
President Barack Obama arrived to a warm welcome in Cartagena for the
The opening ceremony for the Summit of the Americas. President Donald Ramotar is seated in front row, third from right.
Americas Summit, but the absence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did not shield the US from criticisms that its trade blockade continues to restrict growth in Cuba.
“It’s time to overcome the paralysis that carries ideological stubbornness and seek consensus…for the sake of the Cuban people,” said host president Juan Manuel Santos.
He was at the time declaring open the Sixth Summit of the Americas, which is being attended by 33 leaders from North, South, and Latin America and the Caribbean. President Donald Ramotar is leading Guyana’s delegation at the summit and he is expected to make an address today.
Santos called on countries of the Americas to overcome the paradigms of the past, build bridges and be creative to overcome the difficulties of the hemisphere, including the situation in Cuba. He said that Cuba’s isolation and embargo is anachronistic and ineffective.
“Isolation, however, indifference, looking the other way, have already demonstrated their inefficiency,” said Santos at the opening of the Sixth Summit of the Americas
Cuba was not invited to the Americas Summit, and Santos said he hoped this sixth summit would be the last one from which Cuba will be absent.
“I hope this is the last summit without Cuba. I hope we can move forward and effective bridge for it to be the last of the summits in Cuba is absent,” said the Colombian president.
On March 7, Santos traveled to Havana to inform his counterpart, Raul Castro, that he could not invite him to the summit having not reached consensus among the countries of the hemisphere about its participation in the summit.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is boycotting the summit because of Cuba’s exclusion.
Meanwhile, he also made a plug for leaders in the Americas to do more for poverty-stricken Haiti.
“We cannot reach another summit before we are able to contribute collectively to vigorously move Haiti to the path of growth and the eradication of extreme poverty,” he stated.
Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkette, First Lady Deolatchmee, and President Donald Ramotar arrive at the San Felipe Castle for a state dinner before the start of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena.
Santos argued that instead of promoting their own agendas, countries in the hemisphere should embrace as their own the Haitian government itself, who knows better than anyone the urgent needs of its people.
“Watching what happened there in the last decade, we find that each country cooperates with Haiti in their own way and according to their own interests, with a cacophony of good intentions but poor results,” the Colombian President said.
The two-day summit will see the leaders discussing poverty and inequality, citizen security, disasters, access to and use of technology, and regional physical integration in the Americas.
Obama’s attendance at the summit has been overshadowed by reports that 12 of his secret service agents were sent home for misbehaviour, including drinking.
At least one of the agents is thought to have been involved with prostitutes.
Obama has criticized the media for focusing on that instead of so-called progress at the summit.
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