Protests outside the site of the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on Monday
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Parallel to the official America Summit, which opened in Los Angeles on Monday with the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, various organizations from the USA and Latin American countries are organizing an alternative “summit of the peoples” at the same location starting this Wednesday. According to the organizers, more than 1,000 members from over 200 groups have registered so far. Significantly more participants were expected at a demonstration on Friday evening, Manolo de los Santos from the US civil rights organization The People’s Forum, which is helping to prepare the alternative summit, told the Cuban KP newspaper Granma.
“We want to draw attention to issues that are important for the people and the struggles in this country,” said Stephanie Weatherbee Brito from the progressive movement “The People’s Summit,” which is also a co-organizer, on Tuesday on the Cuban online portal Cubadebate further out. She urged that Washington should not interfere in relations and operations in other countries and that the US government “should instead attend to the deficiencies, needs and injustices of its own country.” At the same time, it is about solidarity with all anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America and the Caribbean. “We condemn the sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and other progressive developments in the region,” Weatherbee Brito said.
The portal also reported that US authorities have denied at least 23 representatives of Cuban civil society entry and participation in alternative summit events. Those rejected included scientists, journalists, artists, trade unionists, women’s rights activists and community representatives.
The demonstration on Friday, dubbed the “march against the exclusion summit,” was initially banned by the police, but then approved subject to conditions following protests and negotiations with the state government. The events of the coming days are about “breaking with this policy of exclusion and prohibitions and achieving greater social cohesion among the popular movements, the trade unions and the peoples who are fighting on our continent,” said Manolo de los Santos. The »Workers’ Summit of the Americas«, which takes place from Friday to Sunday in Tijuana, Mexico, also as a counter-event to the official America Summit organized by Washington, pursues similar goals.
In the US, preparations for pro-democracy events were overshadowed by an attack by right-wingers who, under the protection of local police forces, broke into the People’s Forum in New York on Friday. More than a dozen officers from the New York Police Department observed their action without intervening and “prevented us from expelling the right-wing extremists from the building,” explained Manolo de los Santos. “Recently, a coalition of Cuban and Venezuelan anti-communists and other reactionaries have stepped up their attacks on us,” the organization said in a press statement. Their anger is directed against everything that the forum represents, “namely socialist ideas, the work with the communities and the struggles of the workers,” commented Manolo de los Santos, adding: “This type of attack is a phenomenon with which the left has to deal with all over the world today.«
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