Summit of the Americas 'a failure', says ALBA-TCP top official

CARACAS - The upcoming Summit of the Americas "has failed", Sacha Llorenti, secretary general of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), said Tuesday.

The 9th edition of the summit is to open on June 6 in the US city of Los Angeles without the participation of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which were excluded by the United States.

At a press conference, Llorenti said it is clear that the meeting is "neither a summit nor a Summit of the Americas". He expected some countries won't attend "in protest of the exclusion while those that do attend will protest the exclusion".

The debacle reflects the "decline of US hegemony" in the region, where "the real integration platform" is the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), said Llorenti, former Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations.

The United States has no interest in promoting democracy or human rights and "what it wants is for its conditions to be imposed and its interests prioritized above the common interests of the region", he said.

The United States has traditionally attacked Latin America's integration mechanisms, while ALBA-TCP has sought to "strengthen CELAC ... and the regional integration processes as the only way to face global challenges" in Latin America and the Caribbean, Llorenti added.