LEONEL FERNANDEZ: FORMER DOMINICAN PRESIDENT SAID THAT LATIN AMERICA HAS BECOME “IRRELEVANT IN WORLD POLITICS” 

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Truenewsblog –  La Romana (Dominican Republic), March 29 (EFE) .- Former Dominican President Leonel Fernández said on Tuesday that disunity has led Latin America to become an “irrelevant” region in world politics.

Fernández, who spoke at the opening of the Global Forum @ Casa de Campo, which is being held on Tuesday in La Romana (Dominican Republic), stressed that these are the moments “of greatest and weakness” of Latin America and the Caribbean in its contemporary history.

“At this time, unfortunately, Latin America and the Caribbean, lacking a voice that unifies it on the international stage, has become an irrelevant region,” Fernandez said in his speech.

The former president pointed out that regional integration organizations are in crisis and maintained that CELAC “does not work”, “UNASUR has disappeared”, the Andean Community of Nations “does not make itself felt”, the Central American Integration System (SICA) is divided and CARICOM “does not represent all the nations of the Caribbean”.

“And the OAS, economically fragile, fails to attract all the support required to perform the functions of dialogue for the democratic political stability that we all want for the region,” he added.

Fernandez also said that Latin America “is not, at present, a priority” for U.S. foreign policy.

In the midst of this context, he said that the great task of the current generation of Latin Americans is to “reverse” that panorama and transform the peoples of the region “into a great community of prosperous, democratic, just and supportive nations, respected and admired in all parts of the planet.”

The Global Forum @ Casa de Campo is organized by Funglode, a foundation chaired by Fernández, and brings together dozens of experts and personalities from the region on Tuesday.

Among them are former Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Dominican Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez, as well as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, Robert Menéndez, who participated by videoconference.

The central theme of the forum is the perspectives presented for the continent in the face of the Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Los Angeles (USA) next June, in a context of crisis further complicated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.