Evaluating the CELAC summit

The summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was held on September 18 in the Aztec capital. For the host López Obrador, it is a step in the direction of creating an autonomous body for the entire region to the south of the United States against all the northern powers.

Both Mexico and Bolivia want to create a counterweight body to the OAS, which they see as an entity managed by Washington and which has promoted the fall of the constitutional governments of La Paz and Caracas. Cuba and Venezuela, which are the republics with the greatest coastline in the Caribbean, reject the OAS and their two presidents went to the summit.

Maduro surprised by attending at the last minute what caused the withdrawal of Colombia, criticism of Paraguay and Uruguay, and justifies that Brazil is the only country that does not want to continue being part of it. For Bolsonaro it is not possible to continue in an entity with authoritarians, although he justifies the military coups in his country and in Chile.

The Venezuelan President arrived with the confidence that in the previous days, in that same city of Mexico DF, the opposition had been able to recognize him as president and agree to participate in local elections that he calls, arguing that they are the 29ths that are given under the chavismo.

This summit has agreed from condemning the first assassination that has occurred in this region in more than half a century (that of Haiti) to continuing with the traditional line of making this the only fully denuclearized region on the planet and in solidarity with the demand. Argentina through the Falkland Islands, Georgia and South Sandwiches, in British hands.

The summit addressed the issue of the pandemic, the production of national vaccines and the coordination to prevent this region from ending up being the worst hit by COVID-19. Although there was not much discussion about the OAS and its future, it is clear that a counterforce against the United States has been brewing in its “backyard.”

This appointment took place almost at the same time as the summit of the Shanghai Group that unites the 2 most populous republics (India and China), the largest (Russia), 4 former Soviet republics of Central Asia, a Pakistan and Iran to create a counterbalance against Washington, which unites half of humanity and 60% of the mainland of Eurasia.

In both events an orientation towards a more multipolar world is projected. After the hard defeat of the US in Afghanistan that it occupied for 2 decades, the Shanghai Group brings together all the neighbors of the new Taliban Emirate, the same one that will seek to pressure it to avoid being the center of terrorist operations in other nations.

Although, in the case of CELAC, it did not touch on the Afghan issue (as well as the blockade of Cubva and Venezuela), it is clear that the nationalist governments of that region (such as Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and several Antilles) will want to take advantage of the new North American weakness to make way for a policy of less submission to the White House and more openness to China (which is already the main trading partner of Chile and many other South and South nations. Central America) and Russia (which for the first time has a strong presence in the South American subcontinent).

The debutant Peruvian president Pedro Castillo stood out for being the only one with a hat, for his speeches in favor of different indigenous nationalities of his country and for wanting to say that with a government the ancient country of the Incas was going to seek good relations with all countries, even with those that the US wants to sanction and block.