Transparencia Electoral energetically rejects the invitation of Alberto Fernandez to dictators Nicolas Maduro, Miguel Diaz Canel, and Daniel Ortega
President Alberto Fernandez has extended an invitation to his counterparts from Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Miguel Diaz Canel, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega to attend the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) which will be held in Buenos Aires on January 24th.
Transparencia Electoral expresses its strong rejection of this attempt to normalize the autocratic regimes headed by the aforementioned rulers, who systematically violate human rights in their respective countries.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), these three countries are home to nearly 1,500 people imprisoned for political reasons, including civilians and soldiers. In the case of Cuba, as of December 2022 there are 1,034 people arbitrarily detained, most of them for the mere fact of participating in the massive anti-government demonstrations on July 11th, 2021.
For its part in Venezuela, there are at least 247 and in Nicaragua, 195 people deprived of their liberty.
Many of them are not only imprisoned, but isolated, subjected to torture, and cruel treatments.
The regimes of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua systematically violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), or the Inter-American Democratic Charter, among other international instruments. Argentina has made a commitment to respect and promote what’s established in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which is that “the peoples of the Americas have the right to democracy, and their governments the obligation to promote and defend it”.
The attempt to normalize these 3 dictatorships not only exposes the lack of democratic commitment of the Argentine government, which exercises the pro tempore presidency of CELAC, but it is also an insult to the people detained, tortured, and murdered for political reasons in these three countries. As well as an insult to the families and citizens of these countries, some of whom have chosen Argentina to live.
We urge CELAC member countries to renew their commitment to democratic values and demand the decline of invitations to Nicolas Maduro, Miguel Diaz Canel, and Daniel Ortega, as well as their delegations, and to use the space of this intergovernmental mechanism to make visible the violation of rights of the peoples who are being prevented from expressing themselves.
