The Times of India, April 18, 2001.
HAVANA: Excluded for the third time from the summit of the Americas, Cuban
president Fidel Castro will be the most glaring absence when 34 heads of state
and government from the hemisphere meet in Quebec city from April 20 to 22.
Cuba's banishment from the hemispheric family, which styles itself as "a
club of democracies," is a result of the US policy of ostracizing the
Havana regime, which has lived under US sanctions for nearly 40 years
Quebec city summit will focus on creation of a free trade area of the
Americas (FTAA), which would reduce trade barriers among the nations spanning
the Americas by 2005, as a means to boost hemispheric trade and poverty-stricken
economies.
The Quebec summit is the third such event following the inaugural summit,
hosted by former US president Bill Clinton in Miami in 1994, and a second summit
held in Santiago in 1998.
The Cuban government believes the free trade zone will be used by the US as
a tool of maintaining their control over Latin America. It comes at a time when
many countries of the region fear that the conservative administration of US
president George W. Bush will throw the region back to the time "big stick"
policies or re-ignite the cold war.
"Cuba is not taking part in a project, which in the end aims to
perpetuate Latin America's subordination to the US," Cuban parliamentary
speaker Ricardo Alarcon said last month. (AFP) | 