By Peter Lansiquot
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – On Sunday, December 18 (Prensa Latina) political and solidarity organizations, together with various Dominican personalities, criticized the foreign policy of the current government with respect to the Latin American region.
In a letter addressed to the president, Luis Abinader, and delivered last Friday at the National Palace, the aforementioned expressed that the position of the executive regarding Latin American regional policy is outside the Dominican Republic Constitution, and the UN Charter, as it is part of a bloc led by the United States against sister countries.
After mentioning the articles of the Magna Carta that they consider to be breached in foreign policy, the signatories questioned the justification of disrespect for human rights for certain countries – and not for others – such as the coup in Bolivia or the assassinations of social leaders in Colombia.
They also pointed out: ‘It is evident that the Dominican government is part of a regional coup bloc headed by the United States, which not only affects Cuba and Venezuela, but all the countries in the region that do not agree with being simply a United States backyard.
That bloc, they warn, which does not have the support of the majority of nations in the world, attacks Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, and, as in the case of Cuba, thereby restricting development and prohibiting access to essential products, including health products. ‘Support for such a policy constitutes actions that are inconsequent with human nature itself.’
And they questioned how could Dominican Republic foreign policy justify being part of an interventionist bloc which also violates nation’s sovereign rights to self-determination, while recalling the effects of the North American intervention in 1916 and 1965, under similar pretexts, which resulted in the assassinations of thousands of Dominicans by marines and mercenaries, supported by Latin American countries.
Finally, the document warned that changing the Good Neighbour policy for that of the Big Stick, against the brothers, to please the plans of aggression of the nation to the north, is a bad precedent, which should hurt us as if they had done it to us.
Let us return to the Good Neighbour policy of respect and peaceful coexistence with all the sister countries that work and struggle to get ahead against the pandemic and the economic crisis generated by it, concludes the letter.
msm / ema
– This article originally published in Spanish was translated by Peter Lansiquot, first vice-president of the Saint Lucia – Cuba Humanistic Solidarity Association (HSA) and president of the Saint Lucia – Venezuela Solidarity & Integrationist Movement (SLVSIM).
