HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 9 (acn) Things became heated at the Convention Center Vasco Nunez de Balboa in Panama City before the beginning of the Forum on Wednesday due to a strong protest of the Cuban delegation to the Forum of Civil Society of the 7th Summit of the Americas, the entry to which was denied to some twenty representatives of the island.

One of the representatives of civil society in Cuba that did not receive the document authorizing his participation in the meeting is Cuban writer and intellectual Abel Prieto, to whom entry to the venue was denied minutes before the inauguration of the Forum.

Prieto stated: many of us even received the confirmation by mail for our participation and we have no idea why they have not told us whether this is intentional or if it is a bureaucratic process.

We do not want to question the willingness of the Panamanian government, he pointed out, but the organizers, the Network of Human Rights which assumed responsibility for organizing the meeting left out many important representatives of the Cuban civil society and received a group of unpresentable people that receives funding from the CIA, linked to terrorists, he underlined.

We will denounce this type of treatment Prieto stressed, and reaffirm that we refuse to dialogue with that false civil society and, as a delegation, we demand that the terrorists and mercenaries are expelled.

And added the Cuban intellectual: How are we going to talk about a dialogue between the Americas if terrorists are in this space?; how do organizers want a serious, transparent and dignified, civilized conversation between the Americas if those who protect these terrorists are being registered in the Summit’s Forums?

For his part, Yoerky Sánchez, representative of the Association of Cuban Journalists, said that while some twenty delegates from the Cuban civil society were denied entry to the opening of the forum, mercenaries paid by imperial powers were accredited to freely participate.

We do not understand why, if we are in a list of delegates accepted for the Forum, we were not given the credential that allows us to participate, said Sánchez.