The VIII Summit of the Americas in Lima will be held in a regional context that is completely different from the previous one: Lima is not Panama.
The leaders of the “21st Century Socialism” who threatened to boycott the VII Summit of the Americas in Panama to impose on President Obama the acceptance of the bloody dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba, will no longer be at the table.
Maduro has been declared persona non grata. Dilma Rouseff was deposed and by the time of the Summit inauguration Lula Da Silva will be in jail. Rafael Correa from Ecuador no longer controls the presidency or his party. Cristina Kirchner in Argentina is near to facing the courts and her influence on Peronism have been reduced to a minimum. In Colombia, the center-right presidential candidate enjoys overwhelming support among voters when we are just weeks before the elections.
On the other hand, the United States will not be represented by Hillary Clinton, as many expected, but by Donald J. Trump. The new U.S. president, if the Summits continue to exist or do not have much value to United States interests, may come to the conclusion that is a bad investment and put an end to American financial support to these diplomatic rituals. He won’t hesitate to announce a reduction, if not a total withdrawn, of U.S. contribution to these conferences since over Washington usually covers 50% of their cost. Simply put, this time neither is there an anti-American coalition present to blackmail the president of the United States, nor is the logic that guides Donald Trump in these matters that of Barack H. Obama.
Unable to obtain results within the framework of the official Summit, the Axis Havana -Caracas is preparing a radical show at the so-called “Parallel Summit of the Civil Society”. They are working on mobilizing radical elements and provocateurs from different countries to destabilize Lima during the official event and have taken measures to prevent the arrival to the Summit of Cuban or Venezuelan opposition voices. Cuba’s official press its already bragging on winning “the Battle of Lima” and haranguing troops of Cuban and foreign collaborators of the Cuban dictatorship, who allege to represent civil society, to harass and attack -physically and verbally- those who may dare to speak out against the Castroist sultanate .
Meanwhile, Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, the Island’s political police, is preventing pro-democracy activists from traveling to the site of the VIII Summit. But everything indicates that the voice of the Cuban people will be heard, loud and clear, in Lima. The voices of the heads of state and foreign ministers of governments and parties, who are no longer part of the Sao Paolo Forum and who now constitute the majority of the OAS, will also be heard this time.
Undoubtedly, the influence of Havana has declined in Latin America, but it seems that it is not the only region where this is happening.
Accustomed to treating Africans with colonialist arrogance, the Cuban government has prompted the Zambian government to ask Havana to withdraw its newly-appointed ambassador for meddling in the country’s internal affairs, by publicly supporting and haranguing the newly created Socialist Party as if he were giving a talk in one of the meeting rooms of the Central Committee of the PCC in Havana. This is the first time that a “friendly” African nation has expelled a Castro ambassador.
In another African country, Kenya, the national professional organization of doctors and dentists denounced the government of Nairobi for hiring Cuban doctors and paying them in hard currency. They demand that what should be done is to hire1200 Kenyan doctors presently unemployed.
In short, the Cuban dictator is not receiving very encouraging news lately. Although at his advanced age Raul Castro may not care that much, he does know that the power elite that he leads is becoming aware that a lot of water is flooding the hull of the ship.