Cuba Blames "Reactionary Oligarchies" For Instability In Latin America

“The legitimate protests and massive popular mobilizations happening on the continent…are caused by poverty and growing inequality,” says the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Twitter)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, December 4, 2019 — The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded this Tuesday in a statement to the United States’s accusations that the Island and Venezuela were involved in the protests shaking Latin America.

In a lengthy statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Washington and the “reactionary oligarchies” of being responsible “for the dangerous upheavals and political and social instability in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“The legitimate protests and massive popular mobilizations happening on the continent…are caused by poverty and growing inequality,” said the Ministry.

“Neoliberal formulas aggravate the exclusionary and unsustainable situation of social vulnerability,” added the Ministry, which pointed to, among the reasons for the disturbances in various countries of the region, “privatization, shortages, and the cancellation of public services and increase in citizen insecurity.”

The Ministry added that the demonstrations in Latin America “reveal the crisis of political systems, the lack of true democracy, and the discrediting of traditional conservative parties.”

According to the Cuban Ministry, “The United States defends and supports repression against demonstrators” with the conspiracy of what the Island called “the great media outlets.”

The US special representative for the crisis in Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said this week that Cuba and Venezuela “have made many statements and messages on social media” in an effort to “exacerbate the protests” in Latin America.

“One has to pay attention to the public statements of Cuba and Venezuela in recent weeks that have basically tried to promote a major destablization everywhere, I believe that it’s clear that it benefits them, that they are promoting it, and that they will continue speaking publicly about it,” he added.

The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also made reference to the influence of the two communist countries in the massive protests Latin America is experiencing.

“We in the Trump administration will continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests and we’ll work with legitimate [governments] to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people,” said Pompeo.

Cuba and Venezuela have also been pointed out as countries of origin of an enormous quantity of tweets that egged on violent protests in Chile.

The Cuban government denounced what it considered a persecution against leftist leaders like Dilma Rousseff, Rafael Correa, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, some of whom have pending legal processes for alleged corruption.

Cuba also denounced what it considered a coup d’etat in Bolivia, where its ally Evo Morales was forced to resign after massive demonstrations over alleged electoral fraud, and the worsening of the Venezuelan crisis, for which it blamed the “corrupt” Juan Guaidó. According to the Cuban government, “it hurts imperialism that Cuba has demonstrated that another world is indeed possible and that indeed an alternative model to neoliberalism can be built.”

“In the dramatic situation that the region and the world are experiencing, Cuba reaffirms the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states, and the right of every people to freely elect and build its own political system,” added the Ministry.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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