Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has canceled his trip to Argentina to attend the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

Maduro justified the cancellation with an alleged plan of attack against his delegation.

Fear of being arrested and having his plane impounded may have influenced his decision, observers say.

Rumors of the cancellation surfaced on Monday when the bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was canceled for initially unknown reasons and dropped from the Brazilian delegation's schedule.

When it was announced last week that Maduro had been invited to the summit in Argentina,

Tjerk Bruhwiller

Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.

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The summit's new and old 'star guest' is Lula da Silva, who is leading Brazil back into the Celac community after a two-year hiatus.

At the Summit of the International Community in Buenos Aires, Lula da Silva recalled the need for integration, dialogue and cooperation in the region in a world marked by challenges on multiple fronts.

Most of these challenges are global in nature and require collective responses, Lula da Silva said in his speech on Tuesday.

“We don't want to import rivalries and special problems into the region.

On the contrary, we want to be part of the solutions to the challenges that affect everyone," he stressed.

"The unfortunate exception were the last few years"

During the tenure of Lula da Silva's predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil withdrew from the organization.

The move was justified by political and ideological differences with Cuba and Venezuela, both of which belong to Celac.

Lula da Silva criticized the exit in his speech.

Since re-democratization, Brazil has worked for regional integration and consolidation of a peaceful region, he said.

"The unfortunate exception has been in recent years, when my predecessor made the inexplicable decision to withdraw Brazil from Celac."

In their speeches, both the host of the summit, Argentine President Alberto Fernández, and Lula da Silva warned of the threats to the democracies in the region.

They referred, however, one-sidedly to the threat of a “fascist right”, as Fernández put it, and not to the authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

"We must not allow this unruly and fascist right to endanger the institutions of our peoples," he said, citing the attacks by radical Bolsonaro supporters on the government district in Brasilia, the failed assassination attempt on his deputy Cristina Kirchner last year and the post-election crisis in Bolivia in 2019, which led to the resignation of then-President Evo Morales.

Founded in 2010, Celac brings together 33 countries in the region and strives for Latin American and Caribbean integration and political, economic and social coordination among its members.

The idea of ​​the alliance came about in 1980 when some countries did not agree with the interventionist policy of then US President Ronald Reagan.

In 1985, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay formed the Rio Group with the aim of strengthening democracy and economic and social development.

In the following decades other countries joined.

Essentially, it is a counterpart to the Organization of American States (OAS) without the participation of the United States and Canada.

In his speech, Lula da Silva also highlighted the importance of integration with other countries and regional blocs such as the EU, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the African Union.

"The region must make a clear contribution to building a peaceful world order based on dialogue, strengthening multilateralism and building multipolarity collectively," he said.

He also pointed to Celac's role in the face of food security, energy security and climate change challenges, saying that Latin America can make a significant contribution to the global energy transition that is essential for the planet.