OAS Secretary General Attending Summit in Cuba is Sickening and a Disgrace to the Cuban People Who Seek to Realize the OAS's Founding Principles

Statement

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, made the following statement after the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, announced his attendance to the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Havana, Cuba. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

"It's sickening and outrageous that the Secretary General of the OAS -- a body founded on democratic ideals -- will attend this summit in Cuba, an island whose people remain brutally oppressed by the murderous tyrannical Castro regime. The Secretary General's presence in this event will represent a major propaganda victory for this regime, aiding its efforts to distract the international community's attention from its worsening repression of those who seek to exercise their most basic rights.

"This summit hosted in Cuba will not discuss the daily beatings against the Cuban people, the lack of an independent press, and the strict prohibition of basic freedoms for the people of Cuba. Insulza's willingness to attend this summit in Cuba effectively bestows the blessing of the OAS to the atrocities committed on the island, undermines the pro-democratic movement in Cuba, and reminds all of us of the reforms desperately needed at this dysfunctional multi-lateral entity."

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