St. Vincent Prime Minister Calls for End to US Exclusion of CELAC
WASHINGTON, DC – St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is calling for dialog between the United States and the Community of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAC) on what he describes as “a range of matters touching and concerning the political interests of both”.
St. Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves addressing the Permanent Council of the Organisation of American StatesDr. Gonsalves was addressing a recent meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Washington.
“When at the Summit of the Americas, certain matters were not able to be discussed in a manner in which they ought to have been discussed, consequent upon the exclusion of three countries in our hemispheric family, that is to say Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua,” he said, the time has come for there to be a conversation.
Gonsalves said the discussion could begin with a issue of mutual importance such as migration.
“How are you going to discuss migration at any gathering without talking to Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras?
“We have to be mature and reflective on these questions,” the Caribbean statesman added.
He chided the United states for what he describes as “infantile” their position of exclusion of some Caribbean and Latin American countries from regional and hemispheric discussions.
“It is high time that a great power like the United States, exorcise its nightmarish ghost from the 20th Century which populates the minds of too many leaders in Washington.
“In a world so racked by existential challenges, it is infantile to persist with these exclusionary vanities,” Gonsalves added.
He called for “engagements without preconditions and without unilateral sanctions or impositions, a sensible practical path for mature leaders of understanding and wisdom to pursue in the interest of peace, security and prosperity.”
Gonsalves told the meeting that “Our America has to be re-energized in its pursuit of a deepening integration and internationalist solidarity; steeped in multilateralism and international law, devoid of the hypocrisy of great powers and their yearning for imperium hegemony or a facile destiny,” adding that “a society grounded in naked individualism is unsustainable.”
