Attendees at a Latin American political and economic summit roundly bashed the United States and the economic policies that led to the current global recession. The three-day conference, which began on Monday in Sauípe, Brazil, brought together representatives from 31 Latin American countries including Cuba, many of which had accusatory comments towards the U.S. for its past economic decisions.
The conference was hosted and organized by Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who went so far as to shuttle in foreign leaders using his own country’s air force, according to the Times. The conference addressed the credit crisis and its ramifications across Latin America, and was largely condemnatory of the United States.
A popular sentiment among attendees was that the United States should abandon its nearly 50 year-old embargo on Cuba, and work to include the country into the global dialogue. “This is a further step in the process of ensuring that Cuba occupies its rightful place of dignity in the region and throughout the world,” said Jamaican prime minister Bruce Golding.
Many countries also blamed the United States for stoking the current downturn, with Cuban president Raúl Castro labeling the U.S. “neo-liberalist” in regards to its economic attitudes. “In the middle of an unprecedented global crisis, our countries are discovering that they aren’t part of the problem,” said da Silva, implicitly blaming the United States.
The Brazil conference comes four months prior to the next Summit of the Americas, a meeting that convenes most countries in North and South America, excluding Cuba. Observers claimed that Brazil was attempting one-upsmanship in hosting its own meeting so close to the approaching Summit. “There is no question that this is about exclusion, about excluding the United States,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research group in Washington. “Brazil is demonstrating its enormous convening power.”