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López Obrador describes the blockade on Cuba as "unfair and inhumane" and asks the US to "lift it as soon as possible"

2023-02-11T20:40:01.036Z


The Mexican president takes advantage of the visit of Miguel Díaz-Canel to stage a new defense of Havana and formalize new trade agreements


As has happened in the other three visits of the Cuban president to Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador took advantage of the meeting with Miguel Díaz-Canel to launch a forceful criticism of the US embargo on Havana.

"The government of the United States must, as soon as possible, lift the unfair and inhumane blockade against the people of Cuba," he said this Saturday from the altar of some archaeological ruins in Campeche.

The Cuban president arrived in the morning in the State of the Gulf of Mexico, where he was awarded the Mexican order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest distinction for a foreign Head of State.

The fifth meeting in four years between the two leaders was a new example of a close bilateral relationship that goes beyond the symbolic.

During his speech, López Obrador also made a fiery defense of Cuban sovereignty.

“The people of Cuba, represented here by its president, deserve the award of dignity and that island must be considered the new Numancia, for its example of resistance.

It should be declared a world heritage site, ”he said while criticizing dualistic discourses more typical of past times, such as the Cold War, opening a kind of diplomatic third way.

“We must put aside the dilemma that was imposed between joining the United States or opposing us in a courageous or defensive manner.

It is time to express and explore another option:

Despite his proverbial reserve in international politics, the Mexican president has made Havana a symbol of his diplomatic strategy, dusting off a Latin Americanist agenda that had its first precedent during the temporary presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) ago. three years.

Since he came to power in 2018, the Morena president has been recovering the traditional Mexican harmony with Havana, cooled during the last governments.

The rapprochement has been forged with economic agreements and political winks until it reached its most intense point last year.

In a decided diplomatic endorsement, the Mexican president refused to attend the Summit of the Americas convened by Joe Biden in Los Angeles because he was not invited, among others, by the Cuban president.

Before the central act of the visit, during a brief intervention after Díaz-Canel's arrival at the airport, the Mexican president recalled, for example, the stay of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Mexico during the fifties: "The Granma ship set sail from the port of Tuxpan with a group of revolutionaries including Commander Fidel Castro and legendary guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara to liberate Cuba from the Batista dictatorship."

In addition to the protocol acts and the appointments to history, the appointment served to sign new collaboration agreements in the field of health, by extending the sending of Cuban doctors to Mexico, which already exceeds 500 professionals.

New ballast purchases were also formalized, a stone used in the construction of the Mayan Train, one of the star projects of the Mexican government.

Both leaders actually visited the infrastructure works that crosses the State of Campeche.

This Saturday is Díaz-Canel's fourth trip to Mexico, some of which are especially symbolic.

For example, his invitation to the inauguration ceremony of López Obrador in 2018. Or his presence during the military parade commemorating the independence of Mexico two years ago.

The relationship was also strengthened by López Obrador's visit to Havana.

Unlike other Mexican presidents —all of them have visited Cuba since 1959, but most have done so at the end of their term, in a protocol manner—, the Morena president arrived in the middle of the legislature and after having visited the United States three times, staging that he wants to give the highest level of relations between the two countries.

On that trip, López Obrador was in turn decorated with the José Martí Order, the highest Cuban distinction.

And he also took advantage

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-11

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