Image via Twitter
Activists attending the People’s Summit for Democracy rallied at the convention center where the Summit of the Americas is being held in Los Angeles today (June 10). They were protesting US sanctions against countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as the exclusion of those countries from the Summit of the Americas itself.
The Presidents of Mexico, Honduras and Bolivia all boycotted the summit to protest this exclusion.
The People's Summit is being held to counter the US and imperialist narratives at the "official" event and since June 8 has held workshops and events around global warming, labour justice, prison abolition, housing, food sovereignty and other issues.
Under the slogan "Let Cuba Live!" the People's Summit description for an event on June 8 opposing the blockade noted:
The blockade imposed by the U.S. on Cuba intentionally strangles the Cuban people’s ability to obtain goods, materials, and equipment necessary for life and well-being. It also deprives people living in the U.S. of all of the medical, economic, cultural, and intellectual benefits that Cuba can offer, particularly for young people embedded in the struggle for a society based on care and solidarity, not profit and exploitation.