The surprising countermarch of Guillermo Lassothe Ecuadorian president who retraced his steps and confirmed his presence, proudly inflated the chest of the organizers of the top of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (celac). “The 33 members send presidents or ministers, it is something historic,” they argued from the government of Alberto Fernandez and the Foreign Ministry, which is working around the clock preparing for the meeting, which will start this Tuesday at a hotel in the Retiro neighborhood.
No one in the government denies that the stellar presence of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvaacted as an irresistible “magnet” for the announced presence of questioned leaders such as the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro or the Cuban Miguel Diaz-Canel. No less true is that the ideological heterogeneity of the delegations, which also include as guests a delegation sent by the US president Joe Bidenanother from the European Union and a video recorded by the Chinese president Xi Jinpingrepresents a major challenge for a government that prides itself on its skill in balancing the often conflicting forces, inside and outside the continent.
“Lula had to do a lot to make everyone want to come,” they commented close to the chancellor santiago cafiero, in a gesture to give as much prominence as possible to the new president of Brazil, who will arrive in the country on Sunday night and on Monday will sign an ambitious integration agreement with Fernández, in which agreements on energy and financial matters stand out. In addition, he plans to meet with Cristina Kirchner.
If integration with Lula is a priority, so was achieving “harmony” with the United States and China, the two superpowers that today are fighting for world supremacy. The United States delegation, headed by Senator Chris Doddresponds according to the Government to Washington’s need to “look more sensitively at what is happening in South America”, while China -a natural partner of Celac, founded by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez little more than a decade ago – he went a little further in his gestures with the “complimentary” (according to the officials who checked it) video that President Xi sent. “The United States praises us, but does not give us credit, China does”, they differentiated from the Government to justify the greater proximity to the Asian giant.
In that frantic search for “getting along with everyone” according to the Catalan singer Joan Manuel Serratthe Casa Rosada and the Foreign Ministry lit the fuse of the opposition, by inviting Maduro, Díaz-Canel and Ortega, although the latter – who lives in almost total isolation, only linked to countries like Russia of Vladimir Putin or Iran – decided to send its foreign minister, Denis Moncada.
The reactions to the announced presence of Maduro (in the Foreign Ministry they open a crack and do not rule out a possible last-minute failure, as occurred in the inauguration of Lula, the first day of this year), were from those who requested, such as the head of Pro , Patricia Bullrichthe “immediate arrest” of the Venezuelan, even those who, like the deputy Alberto Asseff, stressed that “opening the doors of our country to three hateful dictators implies a notable contradiction” in terms of the defense of human rights. In the middle, the Argentine Forum for Democracy in the Region (Fader), made up of representatives of the UCR and Pro, former ambassadors and representatives of culture, denounced in Justice Maduro, Díaz Canel and Ortega for human rights violations.
“Those who criticize want to change the axis of the discussion, what they want is to avoid the photo that is going to be set up between the presidents, most of them with a progressive bias, who talk regarding recovering the Great Homeland,” challenged the Argentine ambassador to Venezuela, Oscar Laborde, on Thursday on FM Milenium. “It is not that everything that is happening (in Venezuela) seems good to us, but much less everything seems bad to us,” held last Friday at The uncovering the presidential spokesperson, Gabriella Cerrutiby way of defense of the invitation to Maduro. The President, meanwhile, has already confirmed a bilateral meeting with the Cuban Díaz-Canel, successor to Fidel and Raul Castro since October 2019, during the day on Wednesday.
“In 2013, (the then president of Chile) sebastian pinera he handed over the pro tempore presidency of Celac to Raúl Castro”, they recalled from the San Martín Palace, as an additional justification for the invitation to the Bolivarian regimes.
In relation to the presidency of the community of nations, which Argentina exercised during this year, the only postulate so far is Ralph Gonsalvesprime minister of little Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, nominated by Ortega’s Nicaragua last year, as part of the agreement for Argentina to win the presidency following two years in which the Mexican Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (absent with notice from the summit) managed the strings of the entity.
“This year it is the turn of the Caribbean, we are going to vote for San Vicente as we agreed, although we do not know if anyone will oppose that nomination”, they were cut off from the Foreign Ministry, while they did not rule out other options: that Brazil take over on its return to Celac or that, due to a lack of unanimity, Argentina continues at the head of Celac for another year. “We are not working to stay,” they say from the Government. Everything will be known on Tuesday evening, following the deliberations at the Sheraton Hotel, and before the departure of the presidents and delegations.
