CELAC is a 33-country bloc founded in Caracas in 2011, largely promoted by Venezuela’s late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez as a U.S-free alternative regional structure to the Organization of American States (OAS), of which the United States is a member.
Castro, who presently chairs the bloc’s yearly rotating pro-tempore presidency, called for the urgent meeting, scheduled for Thursday, January 30, 2025. The encounter will occur in the aftermath of Colombian far-left President Gustavo Petro’s brief diplomatic crisis with the United States, a short-lived “trade war” thanks to his refusal to welcome a flight carrying deported Colombian immigrants. Petro initially refused the flight on the grounds that the United States treats “Colombian migrants as criminals.”
In her official letter calling for the meeting, President Castro announced that Gustavo Petro will travel to the Honduran capital city of Tegucigalpa to participate in the meeting. The event will address migration, the environment, and “Latin American and Caribbean unity” as its three main subjects. Petro is slated to assume CELAC’s pro-tempore chair in “a matter of weeks” once Castro’s tenure at the head of the regional bloc ends.
The Colombian government confirmed Petro’s attendance of the CELAC meeting in an official statement issued on Sunday afternoon, right as Petro’s short-lived feud with the United States unfolded. According to the Colombian government, the South American nation held talks with Honduras to “promote a regional approach to migration challenges and ensure conditions of dignity for the citizens of the region.”
In the same statement, the Colombian government explained that, “under the leadership of President Gustavo Petro” the Colombian presidential plane had been arranged to facilitate the “dignified return” of the Colombian deportees that Petro initially refused to admit.
“Likewise, the Government of Colombia maintains active conversations with the Government of the United States, seeking agreements that ensure minimum conditions of respect and dignified treatment for compatriots during the deportation process, recognizing them as subjects of rights,” the statement read. “Colombia reaffirms its commitment to the protection of its nationals and will continue to lead regional and international efforts to find humane and fair solutions to migration challenges.”
The upcoming CELAC encounter will mark the second gathering of Latin American governments this month to address migration following the start of President Trump’s new administration.
In mid-January, a smaller group composed of foreign ministers and representatives of Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela gathered in Mexico City to address migration ahead of Trump’s return to the White House. The gathering was a joint initiative by President Castro and Mexican far-left President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The Mexico-hosted meeting concluded with a 14-point statement in which the ten participant Latin American nations — while making no direct mention of the United States and President Donald Trump — expressed “serious concern” over announcements of mass deportations, “particularly because of their incompatibility with fundamental human rights principles and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration.”
Last week, Castro claimed that Honduras is in a “defense project and taking different measures for our migrants in the face of threats of expulsion from the United States.” The far-left president also asserted that Honduran migrants in the United States “are not a burden, but an engine of development.”
“I can proudly say that Hondurans are the best workforce in the United States, proving that we are not a burden, but rather a driving force for the development of that nation,” Castro reportedly said in a message read by her Vice President Renato Florentino at a parliamentary event.
“We reaffirm the defense of their rights. Our migrants have earned every dollar with their honorable and hard work that they send to their families, the fruit of their effort, their sweat and their determination,” her message continued.
During her January 1 New Year speech, Castro threatened to have the United States’ military base in Honduras shut down if President Trump’s administration carries out mass deportations of Hondurans.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Breitbart News
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