Once again, Cuba was absent from the Summit of the Americas. Yet the communist nation might as well have attended the gathering last weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, because it took center stage, despite US efforts to focus on other issues. Ecuador's president refused to attend the summit in protest of Cuba's exclusion. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazil's Dilma Rouseff, both moderates rather than left-wingers, said there should be no more Summits of the Americas without Cuba. A leftist bloc of nations that includes Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and some Caribbean countries said it won't participate again unless Cuba does. The controversy should serve as a wake-up call to the United States: The policy of banning Cuba from the gathering of the hemisphere's leaders for nearly 18 years is backfiring. It hasn't led to regime change and it hasn't persuaded President Raul Castro or, before him, his brother Fidel to embrace democratic reforms. Instead, it has fueled frustration among Latin leaders. — Excerpts from a Lost Angeles Times editorial __
