Daniel Ortega Denounced Censorship at Summit of the Americas
CUBA, April 22, 2009. Nicaragua´s President Daniel Ortega denounced that during the 5th Summit of the Americas, held in Trinidad-Tobago, the heads of state and government of Latin American and Caribbean countries underwent censorship.
Speaking during the prime-time TV show “The Round Table” on Wednesday, President Ortega noted that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was right when he described the meeting as a secret summit, though for Daniel Ortega it was a censored meeting, as he called it.
Daniel Ortega said behind the harmful proceeding was the US delegation which, along the Organization of American States (OAS) participated in the organization of the continental gathering. He contrasted such proceedings to the different performance of Ibero-American summits, whose debates have kept in direct contact with the people.
Despite the censorship and the prohibitions dictated by the organizers of the meeting, some information was leaked, said Ortega who added that such a situation reminded him of his years in prison, where they had to find ways to let information known out of the jail.
Speaking to the Cuban people during the TV program, the Nicaraguan leader said that the only occasion in which there was direct contact with the people took place during the inaugural ceremony of the summit, in which the organizers tried to limit the time of statements to only 10 minutes.
The Nicaraguan president criticized the treatment given the heads of state and government on their arrival at the Port of Spain airport, where he had to wait for three hours to get to the local air terminal because, as he stressed, “the emperor of the hemisphere” was arriving first. A similar situation was faced by presidents Evo Morales, Michelle Bachelet, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Felipe Calderon.
Daniel Ortega considered that the first great victory during the summit was the fact that the Cuba issue was present during debates, since it was a point raised by Latin American and Caribbean countries, and even by right-wing leader who had to demand the lifting of the US economic blockade of the Caribbean nation.
He said that the United States is trapped in its own expansionist and warmongering history and he highlighted the statements by Cuban President Raul Castro at the most recent ALBA Summit, held in Caracas and he rejected manipulations by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton about alleged differences between Fidel and Raul. (Cubaminrex- ACN)
|