The US national security adviser welcomed Brazil’s new president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and slammed what he called a “troika of tyranny”: Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
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Bolton drew a line between friends and foes, praising the presidents-elect in Brazil and Colombia. “The recent elections of like-minded leaders in key countries, including Ivan Duque in Colombia, and last weekend Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, are positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance,” Bolton said in a speech at Miami-Dade College.
“Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere. We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers … The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere – Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – has finally met its match,” he added.
Bolton also referred to the “troika of tyranny” as a “triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua”.
On Thursday, the UN General Assembly adopted its 27th annual resolution urging the US to end the economic embargo against Cuba. The US mission reportedly tried to amend the text of the resolution in order to put additional pressure on Cuba to improve its human rights record. Earlier this week, the Miami Herald reported that the US administration was considering allowing Cuban Americans to sue foreign companies controlling property in Cuba seized from exiles by the government in Havana in US courts.
