"Extremists are gathering to conspire against Celac," writes Katu Arkonada.

247 - The summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held on the 24th in Buenos Aires, the capital of... Argentina. 

Two years after leaving the 32-country regional bloc, the Brazil He will rejoin it, and will be represented at the summit by President Lula. 

On that occasion, the OperaMundi website published on Wednesday (18) an article by the Basque political scientist Katu Arkonada, a specialist in Latin America. Read below: 

OperaMundi - On January 24th, the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held in Buenos Aires. Around 15 presidents from the region will attend, including Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the summit will be presided over by the host, Alberto Fernández.

It is obvious that it is important for the Argentine government that the CELAC Summit be a success, because amidst the delicate internal political situation the country is going through, with a presidential election on October 22nd, if this international event and the transfer of the pro tempore presidency [to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a member country of ALBA] end well, it would help improve Argentina's image throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

But the Latin American right, with the help of the U.S. State Department and its intelligence agencies, is conspiring to prevent the growth of CELAC, which is strengthening with the incorporation of new governments into the progressive axis, such as that of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Gabriel Boric in Chile, and Xiomara Castro in Honduras. The latter country will soon join another instrument of regional integration, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples' Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP).

The regional right wing and the United States, which in the past bet on the Free Trade Area of ​​the Americas (FTAA), defeated precisely in Argentina at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata in 2005, are now placing their bets on the Organization of American States (OAS), even though it will have to get rid of the puppet Luis Almagro, the organization's current secretary general, as soon as possible.

Just as at the height of the progressive cycle, when they conspired to impose "free trade" throughout the Americas, from Canada to Patagonia, they are now trying to defeat so-called "cultural Marxism" and "gender ideology." A few weeks ago, the world's largest far-right organization, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), headed by Trump's former chief of staff, Steve Bannon, met in Mexico to devise a plan of action against the "socialist expansion" in Latin America.

Their results were not long in coming. Several of its participants played a prominent role in the parliamentary coup against Pedro Castillo in Peru, in the second wave of the Bolivian coup led by Luis Fernando Camacho in Santa Cruz, or in the coup against democracy on January 8th, when Bolsonaro's supporters invaded the Planalto Palace, the National Congress and the Supreme Federal Court in Brasília.

Now, the Latin American right in general, and the Argentinian right in particular, which is demonstrating strength especially within the justice system, are conspiring to undermine the image of Alberto Fernández, taking the opportunity to also weaken CELAC. Not to mention the interests of the Cuban-American right in Miami, which aims to boycott the presence of delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, as well as governments they consider socialist, such as Bolivia, Honduras, Mexico, and Brazil, and recently announced its reintegration into CELAC.

Among the Miami extremists who are meeting to conspire against CELAC are:

• Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, president of the Cuban Democratic Directorate (DDC), characterized by his constant provocations against Cuban delegations at Ibero-American summits and other international forums.
• Tomás Pedro Regalado and Valdez, former mayor of Miami, Republican Party activist and staunch Trump supporter, current President of the Inter-American Institute for Democracy.
• Luis Manuel de la Caridad Zuñiga Rey, former agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and former director of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), where he was responsible for its paramilitary group.
• Rosa Maria Paya, an activist supported by Marcos Rubio and Luis Almagro, has a mission to spread the anti-Cuban campaign abroad, and was received by members of the European Parliament at the request of the US State Department.

The individuals mentioned have in common the fact that they receive generous funding from U.S. federal agencies to support any measure that reinforces the blockade or publicly calls for military intervention against Cuba and Venezuela.

But any action against this CELAC Summit cannot be carried out without local collaboration, and for this reason the aforementioned group has been meeting with the following figures of Argentine nationality:

• Gabriel Salvia, president of the Center for Opening and Development in Latin America (CADAL), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of State.
• Gerardo Bongiovanni, director of the Libertad Foundation, funded by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and also linked to the Atlas Network, the Cato Institute, Friedrich Neumann, and Konrad Adenauer, all of which are permanently campaigning against progressive Latin American governments.
• Dear Leandro, who has close ties with Rosa María Payá, executive director of the NGO Electoral Transparency.
• Agustín Antonetti, coordinator of the youth group of the Libertad Foundation, media strategist for the Atlas Network, and the main operator of the anti-Cuban campaign on Twitter in July 2021.
• Micaela Hierro Dori, founder and president of the Cultura Democrática association, used by NED as an intermediary to finance organizations such as the San Isidro Movement.

All the previously mentioned individuals—Americans, Cubans, and Argentinians—work on the following missions:

• Launch a strong media and social media campaign against the delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Mexico, using regional and national media outlets, to get them to provide negative coverage of the CELAC Summit.
• Using funds from US federal agencies and funds earmarked for OAS social projects to finance a trip to Buenos Aires for members of the Latin American far-right, with the aim of carrying out actions during the CELAC event.
• Given the complex situation facing Cuba's official airline and the possibility that the Cuban delegation might resort to a Russian or Venezuelan aircraft, they are exploring a legal maneuver to detain the plane, as recently happened with the Venezuelan-Iranian cargo plane from the company Emtrasur.
• To mobilize Cuban counter-revolutionaries, Argentine friends, and people of other nationalities in Buenos Aires for a demonstration in front of the embassies of the aforementioned countries.
• To exploit Rosa María Payá's close relationship with the President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, in order to repeat the attacks against Cuba during the CELAC summit, as happened at the previous summit in Mexico.
• To engage with the delegations from Paraguay and Ecuador to ensure they make statements during the summit denouncing the governments described as "dictatorial."

Just as happened in Mar del Plata in 2005, it is essential that this new attack against Latin American and Caribbean integration be rejected in Buenos Aires in 2023.

(*) Katu Arkonada is a Basque political scientist specializing in Latin America.

Subscribe to 247, Support via Pix, Subscribe to TV 247, in the channel Cuts 247 and watch: