A summit of equals

 Anyone who has been keeping up to date lately with recent events would no doubt be familiar with the current kerfuffle regarding the upcoming Summit of the Americas that is set to take place in the United States. This summit is normally the highest diplomatic level meeting of all members of the Organisation of America States (OAS), an intergovernmental organisation (IGO)  comprising of all sovereign  countries located in the western hemisphere i.e. North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. International law as stated in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States declares that all independent countries are to be seen as equally sovereign and treated as such by the international community.  A fact that is clearly lost on the United States who have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally exclude the duly elected presidents of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela over purely political reasons. This as anyone can see is a gross dereliction of decorum as the US has decided to in a most undemocratic fashion make unilateral decisions without consulting the wider membership of the OAS.

For their part, many countries in the region such as Mexico and even St Vincent have responded with rage and shock at this decision. And while the outrage might be justified, the shock should be less so, not if anyone knows the history of USA’s relationship with the rest of the continent. Going as far back as its very foundation in 1776, the then scattered colonies upon declaring independence from Great Britain decided that they were going to take the name of the entire continent for themselves as if to say they were the only “America” when in truth that had previously been the name given to the whole hemisphere. It shouldn’t be surprising that this is their attitude given their doctrine of Manifest Destiny to conquer and annex other lands eventually. Decades later, following the Latin American colonies declaring their own independence from the Iberian kingdoms, the US wasted no time trying to assert its hegemonic dominance over the continent when President James Munroe in his 1823 State of the Union Address declared the Munroe Doctrine in which the US all but declared the rest of the continent as pseudo-tributary states. Since that time, the Doctrine has been the cornerstone of US policy towards its neighbours. Several successive Presidents and Secretaries of State have since cited the Doctrine as justification for violating the rights of its sovereign neighbours. It should be noted that the Munroe Doctrine has absolutely no legitimate standing in international law. This has not stopped Uncle Sam from using it as an excuse to trample on the dignity of its closest neighbours some examples include the Roosevelt Corollary and the Platt Amendment not to mention the numerous invasions in places like Panama, Nicaragua and Grenada while also sponsoring coups in Chile and Paraguay. But most egregious of all has been their despicable treatment of Cuba, included in this, is their sponsoring of the Batista regime and their failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Nothing however could possibly be worse than the embargo they have had in place since 1962. The US can talk all they like about how they refuse to trade with Cuba because of its form of government but that talk is all smoke and mirrors as they have no issue doing business with China which is also run by a communist party. Everyone knows that the US is fond of maintaining Cold War relics (such as NATO) in its orbit and the Cuban embargo is but another one of these. Both the United Nations and the OAS has repeatedly condemned the US for continuing to stifle Cuba but their please have mostly fallen on deaf ears. The US has long made the claim that the original purpose of the embargo was to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold in the region but the Soviet Union is long dead and its Russian successor certainly isn’t looking to expand into Cuba. Although the opposite isn’t true as the US has been for the last 30 years been using NATO to move closer to Russia, which Ukraine is now paying the price for as we speak. But this is not a discourse on the East but rather on the West.

The US has on many occasion acted in bad faith in dealing with the rest of the Americas, in 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act which imposed harsh penalties for any third country that chooses to trade with Cuba. This was but another example of US arrogance, taking it upon themselves to restrict the sovereign right of nations in the Americas to trade with whoever they wish. This exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction like the Munroe Doctrine has no legal standing and independent states should not have to bow to will of another country since we are all equal before the law.

Speaking of law, the same Helms-Burton Act has also sought to define the form of government that Cuba should have, something they have since repeated with Venezuela when they decided to handpick their own candidate by the name of Juan Guido as president. It should be noted that Guido was never voted for by the Venezuelan people, but was merely a Venezuelan politician who the US felt would be more malleable. And while some might make the argument that Nicolas Maduro wasn’t legitimately elected either, the fact is, it is not the place of any outside power to decide who the head of state should be. Even if the country is not a full democracy (which I’m not saying about Venezuela), the US has no business trying to force Cuba or Venezuela to be more “democratic”. Am I saying that these two countries should be classified as democracies or that I am full support of everything their governments do? Not at all, what I am saying is that whether these countries move to democratise or not; it should be up to them to decide. Having the US Impose its will from top-down will not make them more democratic. Democracy, by definition means a government ruled by the will of the people; obviously this means that a country that has its destiny decided by another is not a full democracy (unless the people there voluntarily choose to remain under this sovereign power by a plebiscite).

By intervening in the internal affairs of Cuba or Venezuela, the US demonstrates its own hypocrisy. In their 2016 presidential election cycle, the US made certain accusations against archrival Russia, who they claimed interfered in the election process to ensure an outcome favourable to them. This then demonstrates that they clearly know that interfering in another country’s domestic politics is wrong. Why then do they think, they can handpick who is to be President of Venezuela?, what gives them the right to have a say in what Cuba’s form of government should be? And how is it that a single country gets to decide how an IGO should be run? What is even more interesting is that you only see this kind of hegemonic one-upmanship in organisations that have the US as a member such as the OAS and NATO, whereas this is noticeably absent in bodies such as the Commonwealth or CARICOM from which the US is excluded, it is clear what the common denominator is here. The US constantly likes to berate other countries for their human rights record, using it as justification to impose its will on other countries but as we are all aware by now, the colossus of the North has its own human rights issues to deal with as demonstrated by the amount of mass shootings that constantly takes place there, a feature which doesn’t commonly happen in any other country, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they are.

What’s my point in stating all of this? America sees itself as the exceptional nation, this is what they use as the ethos to justify actions that they themselves would never allow any other country to get away with. But if the reaction of the rest of continent is anything to go by, it is not clear that no one else is willing to buy into the myth of American exceptionalism, nor should they. It would be a gross insult to the dignity of all other nations to let the US alone (as oppose to majority of the OAS) dictate the terms of engagement. Leaders such as Prime Minister Gonsalves of St Vincent and President Obrador of Mexico should be supported by the rest of the grouping in standing up to the bullying tactics of the US. The world is fast moving away from its post-cold war unipolarity and is fast becoming multipolar, with blocs such BRICS and the EU taking a more prominent role on the world stage. The US is rather slow to recognise the changing world order. Yes, it is true that the US is still for now the world’s premier superpower, but how history tells us that declining superpowers don’t fall in a day, (just ask the Russians or the Brits). Not that I am predicting the fall of the US anytime soon but what I am saying is that it cannot expect to hold on to its unilateral superiority indefinitely, sooner or later, it will have to share the top spot with a rival. The sooner they grasp this concept, the better they will be able to treat other countries like equals. This should not be something hard for them to fathom. Their own Declaration of Independence states that all men were created equal; in that same vein they should also recognise that all nations were created equal. This is the fundamental principle that governs international relations and it is this core tenet that the OAS is supposed to represent, in other words you can say that the Summit of the Americas is meant to be a summit of equals