Cuban President Raul Castro today railed against US spying as he opened a summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders, a group set up by Venezuela's late anti-Western leader Hugo Chavez to counter US influence.
The meeting -- which began with a moment of silence for the late leader -- was hosted by Chavez's closest ally, communist Cuba, in a major diplomatic coup for a country Washington has tried to isolate through a five-decade-old trade embargo.
Analysts said it sends a strong signal to the United States that the region will no longer accept Cuba's isolation -- even if US policy is unlikely to change.
Castro, trading his usual general uniform for a dark blue suit, used his opening remarks in part to fiercely criticize the vast US phone and email spying operation that has raised international consternation, especially among allies such as Mexico and Brazil included among surveillance targets.
The secretive NSA program, details of which were leaked by former US contractor Edward Snowden, "raises concerns about its potential to cause international conflicts," Castro said, adding that the world needs to "prevent cyberspace from becoming a theater of military operations."
And he suggested the United States -- referring obliquely to "the so-called 'centers of power'" -- was not ready to give up its "control of the rich region."
The CELAC bloc of 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations was the culmination of an effort by Chavez to bring together both right-wing and leftist governments to counter the influence of the United States.
The group will declare itself "diverse but united" tomorrow, when it signs a more than 80-point statement that also hints at distancing the region from the United States, whose influence has been weakening in recent years.
The meeting in Cuba also allows leaders to make a statement about the region's commitment to Havana.
"Today, Cuba is the capital of our America," Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega said as he arrived for the meeting.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff yesterday declared "Brazil wants to be a first-order economic ally to Cuba," at a ceremony marking the opening of a major container port, partly funded by Brazil and a major outlet for an island nation excluded from US trade.
