Photo: ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI/REUTERS / Deutsche Welle
The United States denied visas to 23 Cuban government sympathizers who had scheduled to participate in the People’s Summit in June, parallel to the Summit of the Americas, reported this Wednesday (23.05.2022) the official newspaper Granma.
“The government of the United States denied the visa to 23 Cubans who will participate in the Summit of Peoples for Democracy, which will take place from 8 to 10 in June in Los Angeles, California, in parallel with the IX Summit of the Americas,” Granma said, citing as a source to the organizers.
He pointed out that among those 23 people are the doctor Tania Crombet Ramos, who contributed to the development of several vaccines; Reineris Salas Pérez, an Olympic wrestler who won the bronze medal in Tokyo, Jorge González Núñez, a Christian student leader, as well as journalists, artists, trade unionists and community leaders.
USA denies visa to delegation of 23 Cubans who would travel to the Summit of the Peoples in Los Angeles, California.
Sign the petition for the US to revoke this arbitrariness
👇🏽https://t.co/bClY47FBox
—Dominion Cuba (@dominiocuba) May 18, 2022
“Affront to democratic values”
A declaration of the organizers of the meeting, reproduced in Granma, points out that “the denial of their visas is an affront to the same democratic values as the US government and its ‘Summit of the Americas’ they pretend to defend”.
Although several US officials have said that the invitations to the Summit of the Americas have not yet been delivered, they have also suggested that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would not be invited for not meeting democratic standards.
This position has generated protests and the governments of the Caribbean community, Mexico, Bolivia and Guatemala announced that they would not attend if that exclusion remains.
Closing a parliamentary session on Monday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that “whoever assumes the commitment to host a hemispheric meeting must have the ability and courage to listen to everyone.”
Cuba was invited and attended the seventh (Panama, 2015) and eighth (Lima 2018) Summits of the Americas.