The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week and accomplished little. While the organization is not meaningfully addressing the hemisphere’s problems, let alone solving them, small improvements could lead it to a place where it might be able to in the future.
The twin blows of U.S. sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by runaway inflation triggered by an economic reform gone awry, have plunged Cuba into its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most poignant and costly manifestation of the public’s exhaustion is the sharp increase in emigration.
In recent years, formerly colonized countries have been advancing a confident and militant movement for reparatory justice, and it has seen results. But the breakthroughs made have been met with a stubborn resistance by the countries responsible for colonization and slavery to avoid framing the issue as reparations.