Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua condemn exclusion from U.S. summit

Following the United States’ announcement that only leaders of governments that support democracy should attend next month’s Summit of the Americas, a group of leftist countries convening in Havana on Friday denounced the exclusion of certain countries from the event.

The United States will host the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles from June 6 to 10, and has announced it will not invite Venezuela or Nicaragua, while the summit coordinator said the White House will determine whether or not to invite Cuba.

Even if invited, Cuban President Miguel Dáz-Canel declared last week that he would not go under “any conditions.”

Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are among the ten countries that make up the ALBA bloc, which released a statement from Havana saying they “reject the exclusions and discriminatory treatment at the so-called Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.”

They also called the exclusion “arbitrary, ideological, and politically driven,” and added “this unilateral decision represents a severe historical setback in hemispheric ties.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro labelled the upcoming summit as “erratic” in a broadcast speech and praised a group of countries led by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for “standing up to raise the voice of the truth of an entire continent.”

Requests for comment from the White House and the US State Department were not immediately returned.

The presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, and Honduras have all vowed to boycott the summit if certain countries are left out.

Reuters reported last week that 13 of the Caribbean community’s 14 countries, except Cuba, were intending to attend the Los Angeles gathering.

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, indicated in Havana that while he had been invited to the summit, he would not be going