MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Puebla Group supports Caricom-sponsored boycott to Summit of the Americas

Sanders said Caricom countries would not participate if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela not invited

Leaders of the Puebla Group have expressed their support to Caricom's petition not to be sidelined from the upcoming Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles in June.

“We do not want Latin America and the Caribbean to be divided or to be protocolized in a selective Summit managed by the U.S.,” the Puebla Group, a political and academic forum made up of representatives of the Latin American political left, said.

The Group also urged countries in the region governed by progressive projects to join the gesture of solidarity and support the request issued by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) for Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua to attend the Summit of the Americas.

Caricom, an international mechanism made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago endorsed note submitted by the Ronald Sanders, Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States (US) regarding the participation of those three countries in the event.

“In times of international political difficulties, as a result of the Ukrainian crisis and with the search for international cooperation to overcome the profound social impact produced by the pandemic appearing on the agenda of the meeting, it makes no sense to leave out countries that are seeing and suffering from this reality,” the Puebla Group stressed.

“We do not want the division of Latin America and the Caribbean, much less than this be protocolized in a selective Summit managed by the United States,” it added.

Sanders said last week that the Caricom countries would consider absenting themselves from the Summit of the Americas if Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua do not participate.