President Biden, send a message to backers of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua at summit | Opinion

President Biden is scheduled to convene about 100 world leaders to his long-announced virtual Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9-10. But I wonder whether he’s doing right in inviting the presidents of Mexico, Argentina and other countries that — while democratic — are accomplices of some of the world’s worst dictators.

Granted, Biden’s summit is an improvement over former President Trump’s approach to democracy and human rights. Trump didn’t care much about either, and happily embraced dictators such as those of North Korea and Russia, giving them huge propaganda victories in exchange for nothing.

But Biden should be more careful with who he invites to his meeting, or with what place he assigns to them at the table.

U.S. officials told me that a preliminary list of invited countries will include Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines and Poland. Mexico and Argentina have democratically elected presidents, but they back the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan dictatorships.

There are eight Latin American and Caribbean nations that have not been invited to the summit, U.S. officials tell me. The non-invited countries are: Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti.

While the leaders of Mexico and Argentina should not be excluded from the meeting, I wonder whether they should be given the same status as the heads of state from Switzerland, Denmark, Uruguay and other countries that defend democracy.

As recently as last week, the United States, the 27-country European Union and most Latin American democracies denounced Nicaragua’s sham Nov. 7 elections. But Mexico and Argentina shamefully failed to condemn Nicaragua’s electoral farce.

Biden called the Nicaraguan elections a “pantomime.” Even Peru, whose president ran as a candidate for a self-described Marxist party, said in an official foreign ministry statement that Nicaragua’s elections failed to meet “the minimal criteria for free, fair and transparent elections.”

Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, who ran for a fourth consecutive term despite the fact that the Constitution only allowed him one reelection, had, among other things, arrested all seven major opposition candidates weeks before the vote.

Ortega later claimed a massive electoral victory, even if there was an 81% abstention rate, according to the independent Observatorio Ciudadano Urnas Abiertas (Open Polls Citizen Observatory) monitoring group.

What’s just as bad, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in September gave a red-carpet welcome to Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz Canel, inviting him as a special guest to a military parade celebrating a new anniversary of Mexico’s independence.

The Cuban ruler’s visit took place shortly after his regime had arrested more than 500 peaceful demonstrators for participating in the July 11 anti-government protests on the island. It was a much-needed propaganda boost for Diaz Canel at a time when the Cuban opposition was asking the international community to isolate Cuba’s dictator.

Earlier, Lopez Obrador had invited Venezuela’s ruler Nicolás Maduro to his 2018 inauguration, breaking ranks with other Latin American leaders who had decided not to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s leader.

Mexico and Argentina claim they follow a policy of non-intervention in other countries’ internal affairs. That’s baloney, of course, because the two left-of-center populist governments have no qualms in meddling in the internal affairs of right-of-center countries.

U.S. officials say they decided to include countries such as Mexico and Argentina because the summit should be aimed at convincing reluctant countries to be more active in the defense of democracy across the world.

Hmmm. I’m not sure that I buy that. Unless Latin American democracies unite in strongly denouncing Nicaragua’s electoral sham, there will be more Nicaraguas.

As Daniel Zovatto, regional director of the IDEA pro-democracy advocacy group, told Nicaragua’s Confidencial news magazine, failure to condemn Nicaragua’s elections will turn into a “green light” for other Latin American would-be authoritarian leaders to follow the same path.

“They will say, ‘If Ortega can do what he wants and act like a sultan in his country, I can do the same in mine,’” Zovatto said.

Biden cannot disinvite Mexico and Argentina. But he should put them at the far end of the virtual table — perhaps inviting their leaders to speak toward the end of the two-day conference. And he should let everybody know that the first day will be reserved for leaders who are not only democratically elected, but who defend democracy.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 7 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera