Mexico invites relatives of Assange, Guevara to Independence Day

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday he had invited relatives of Julian Assange and Che Guevara to attend the country’s independence day celebrations next week.

Leftist Lopez Obrador said the former presidents of Bolivia and Uruguay, Evo Morales and Jose “Pepe” Mujica, had also been invited, along with relatives of Nelson Mandela, U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King and U.S. labor activist Cesar Chavez.

Sharing a list of names during a regular news conference, Lopez Obrador said the guest list had yet to be confirmed. However, he noted Morales, to whom Mexico granted asylum when he was forced out of office in 2019, had said he would attend.

Lopez Obrador has sought to carve out a leading role for Mexico on Latin America’s left, condemning the U.S. economic embargo of communist Cuba, and showing solidarity with the governments of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela.

The late Argentine revolutionary Guevara is an iconic figure for many on the Latin American left.

Lopez Obrador has also offered asylum to Wikileaks founder Assange, who faces possible extradition from Britain to the United States, where is wanted for publishing classified documents.

The annual celebrations are often referred to colloquially as El Grito (The Cry) because the president traditionally re-enacts a 1810 call to arms from the balcony of the National Palace on the eve of Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16. (This story corrects story to show invitation made to relatives of U.S. activist Cesar Chavez, not Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez)

(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez and Sarah Morland; Editing by Bill Berkrot)