HAVANA TIMES – The OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, denounced on Friday the alleged participation of Cuban citizens in the violation of human rights in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Almagro delivered the opening address of a conference on human rights in Cuba at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, a meeting that he defined as a meeting to discuss “crimes against humanity in Cuba.”

“It is time to end the impunity with which the Cuban dictators live,” he said. “We will do justice in the countries of Latin America that have suffered this aggression, torture, repression and deprivation of liberties,” he said.

Almagro assured that there has been a “Cuban presence” in tortures committed in Venezuela. “It is estimated that the Cuban presence in Venezuela is 46,000 people, an occupation force that teaches to torture, to repress, to do intelligence tasks, civil documentation, migration,” he said.

In Nicaragua, he continued, people who have been tortured in the context of the crisis that started in April assure that there were Cubans present during these mistreatment sessions.

“Cuba is an enemy of democracy and human rights in any part of the continent,” said Almagro, who warned of the “harmful effect” of Cuba in the rest of the region.

The OAS groups all the countries of the American continent. Cuba was suspended in the 1960s for its alignment with the communist bloc.

In 2009 the suspension of the island was lifted, but its government never asked for the reactivation of the membership, so that no Cuban representative sits on the permanent council of the OAS, which works with 34 ambassadors instead of 35.

“The rights of the Cuban people to democracy are equal to the rights of any citizen of the Americas,” said Almagro.