Regional Leaders to Demand End of US Blockade of Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, April 15 (acn) Cuba could become one of the main topics of the 5th Summit of the Americas that will take place in Trinidad and Tobago next weekend.

In this regard, Nicaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Manuel Coronel told reporters in Managua that President Daniel Ortega will introduce the topic of Cuba and will demand the end of the US blockade of the Caribbean archipelago during the meeting.

According to Granma news daily, other leaders of the region have also expressed their intention to emulate Ortega's proposal.

"We can not accept that the United States continues violating Cuba's rights. This is a matter of honor," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently.

Meanwhile, his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales, announced that he would present a resolution in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, demanding the end of Washington's almost fifty-year-old economic, financial and trade blockade of Cuba.

Elsewhere, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorin regretted the absence of any references to the situation of Cuba in the draft of the final declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas and stressed that the exclusion of Cuba from the inter-American system "is an anomaly that
should be corrected."

In this sense, Colombia has said that it hopes bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States enter a "phase of opening and dialogue" after the summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

Cuba was arbitrarily excluded from this kind of meetings in 1994 by Washington.

In the meantime, a group of 47 US Congress members announced that theywill send President Barack Obama a letter recommending ten steps to normalize relations with Cuba.

Representative Sam Farr, a Democrat from California and author of the document, explained that "it is clear that our policy towards Cuba hasfailed and that it is time to look somewhere else."

(Cuba, punto ineludible en la Cumbre de las Américas)