The Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Félix Plasencia, accused Colombia this Saturday of being a “US spokesman.” and “defend the coup” in his speech to the XXII Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), which was held this Thursday and Friday in Argentina.
“We welcome that, finally, the representative of (the president of Colombia, Iván) Duque has participated in the Celiac meeting without sneaking out the back door, as she did in Mexico. Although we understand that she has gone to play her sad role. as a US spokesman in defense of the reigning coup in the Organization of American States (OAS), “Plasencia said on his Twitter.
This Friday, the Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs of Colombia, María Carmelina Londoño, criticized the “opportunistic silences” of Celac for the human rights violations in “three countries” that are members of the organization.
“We cannot have opportunistic silences in the face of fundamental values, which were and always will be everywhere, such as the defense of democracy, freedoms, and human rights,” said Londoño when reading the speech written by the Colombian Foreign Minister, Marta Lucía Ramirez.
In the opinion of the Colombian official, Celac must act “consistently” when defending these principles and suggested, in a veiled manner, the suspension of those member states that violate the foundations of the regional mechanism, created in 2010.
These statements are produced within the framework of international criticism of the human rights situation in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, the three members of Celac, but whom Colombia did not name directly.
In this regard, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, who also attended the meeting, called the Colombian official’s speech “paradoxical” and blamed the Government of that country for torpedoing the peace accords.
“It is paradoxical that in her speech, Colombia, trying to attack its neighbors, seems to denounce itself, in the face of so many human rights violations committed in 2021 by the misrule of Iván ‘massacre’ Duque, whose only legacy will be to have torpedoed the peace accords, “he added.
During his speech at the XXII meeting of Celac, Plasencia criticized the “coercive and unilateral” measures from the US and advocated “strengthening multilateralism” of the member states of Celac.
At this meeting of CELAC foreign ministers, made up of more than thirty countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Argentina achieved the necessary consensus to assume the pro tempore presidency of the bloc in 2022.