The Mexican
state of Quintana Roo is the scene of the summit of the
Latin American and Caribbean countries, scheduled for
February 21-23. This meeting could mark a before and an
after for our region as it look for mechanisms to
discuss and solve the common problems of the Latin
American and Caribbean countries, based on the strength
of unity and diversity.
To achieve
this goal, two important mechanisms for consultation,
the Rio Group, which is celebrating its twenty-first
summit meeting and the 2nd Latin American and Caribbean
Summit on Integration and Development, will overlap by a
couple of days in the resort called Mayan Riviera.
As planned,
32 of the 33 countries of the area will lay the
foundations for a new regional organization without any
presence from outside the region This will include all
the countries from the Rio Bravo to the Patagonia, and
of course, the Caribbean.
Honduras was not invited to the
meeting because many nations don’t recognize the
government of this country, born out of the breaking of
institutional order.
The idea has
been around for several years and has been accentuated
by the ineffectiveness of the Organization of American
States to be a forum for consultation and integration.
Since its
creation in 1948, the OAS has worked as a ministry of
U.S. colonies. It accepts or it doesn’t recognize
peoples according to the interests of Washington. It has
endorsed attacks like those perpetrated against
Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, the Dominican Republic
in 1965, Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, among
others.
The OAS
maintained a complicit silence during the Falklands War
in 1982, and it declined to condemn the U.S., which
betrayed all its commitments to the South American
continent to support British colonialism.
It didn’t
reject the coup attempt against the government of
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, or the placing of the
Pentagon’s military bases in Colombia, Panama, Costa
Rica and other places, which have put the security of
the region in danger.
Finally, it
proved itself unable to prevent and, later to reverse,
the coup d´ État against the president of Honduras,
Manuel Zelaya, an event which nearly brought about the
death of the ancient organization.
So, there is
a long list of betrayals and debts that the OAS has with
our countries and it is time to replace it with another
type of organization not tied to the economic or
political power of a country, but which works as a
Community. The Rio Group has been doing this important
work for years, as well as
the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America, ALBA.
For this
reason, the central point, which is the creation of the
new organization, appears in the agenda of the Mayan
Riviera, as well as the analysis of vital topics for
regional life, such as the reconstruction of Haiti,
Argentina's claim of sovereignty over the Falklands, and
the end of the U.S. blockade against the people of Cuba.
In the
meeting, the participants will also try to avoid the
classic "clean slate" approach to the coup in Honduras,
which some people consider as an already ¨laundered¨
subject after the elections and the inauguration of a
new government.
In short,
this meeting will try to combine in the same space the
ideals of José Martí, Simón Bolívar, Benito Juárez,
Augusto Sandino, Farabundo Marti, Commander Ernesto Che
Guevara and many others who offered their lives for a
free and sovereign Latin America and the Caribbean.
