Dictators and despots “promote democracy” at CELAC summit

Cuban dictator Raul Castro was yesterday handed the presidency of the Washington loathing Latin American and Caribbean geo-political block CELAC, armed with the mission of promoting democracy in the region.

CELAC was set up in 2010 to spite the US and Canada and the Oganization of American States (OAS) which many left-leaning Latin American governments view as being in the pocket of the North Americans.

The brain-child of Venezuela´s favourite absent president, Hugo Chávez, CELAC joins a long list of inter-governmental bodies that have sprung up in recent years in the bureaucracy-obsessed continent.

Ten years ago, Chávez set up ALBA as a socialist vanguard to stand strong against the evil imperialist might of the US, funding the organization with the petrol money he perhaps would be better advised to have invested in his own country´s development.

But the ever imperious Chávez outgrew ALBA, feeling that Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia did not represent a particularly significant geo-political force – at least not big enough for his own head.

Only by uniting the continent in his image, would Chávez – like Bolivar before him had wished to do – be able to claim he had secured the freedom of the Spanish-speaking Americas, that he had heroically shifted off the shackles of the oppressive Washington.

Following last year´s Caracas-based love-in to inaugurate this venerable body, the presidents, dictators and despots of this bizarre grouping have descended on Chile this week to pontificate, sabre-rattle and to enjoy the trappings of the lavish, all-expenses paid for, trip to one of the America´s most economically successful countries.

As hosts, Chile shared the table with the founding fathers, Venezuela – in the form of the caretaker leader Nicolás Maduro – who read out a heart-warming, call-to-arms letter, supposedly written by Hugo Chávez (who despite being able to write, talk and joke as Maduro claims, is incapable of a reassuring telephone call to his beloved compatriots).

The proceedings began with some gut-wrenchingly obsequious paeans to the wonder of the Cuban dictatorship, before the big news was revealed – Cuba, and its dynastic despots the brothers Castro were to be handed the honour and the glory of the CELAC presidency.

What else happened yesterday? Argentine President Fernandez de Kirchner accused the British of trying to control Antarctica through the Falklands, and Evo Morales, President of Bolivia called on his “brothers” (yes, brothers), of the FARC to lay down their arms.

In CELAC´s statues is the commitment to promote democracy. How apt then that a dictator has been sworn in as president of this unelected unaccountable body – democracy? Give me a break.

So while Latin America´s magical realism appears to know no bounds, Colombia Politics asks, where on earth is the continent´s George Orwell to attack this grotesque nonsense?