CMCfeature-SUMMIT-Obama's summit focus

CMCfeature-SUMMIT-Obama came to the summit seeking to bury the scares of his predecessors

By Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – As he wings his way back to the United States on Sunday, Barack Obama would have been pleased with his first visit to the Caribbean.

His visit to Trinidad and Tobago to attend the Fifth Summit of the Americas had provided the opportunity to outline his administration’s new policies that he said would have been different from his predecessors. His, he said, would be a listening, caring one, even though like previous United States leaders, he came here bearing gifts, perhaps seeking to court support for his new appraoch.

On Friday night that new policy was tested.  Obama and his 32 other hemispheric leaders sat for almost one hour getting a history in US-Latin American relations from none other than the former Sandinista Revolutionary leader, Daniel Ortega, even though the host Prime Minister Patrick Manning urged that the forum not be used to allow “any one issue to dominate our deliberations”.

For Manning, the summit, which the Caribbean hosted for the first time ever, provided the ground work for the  “new approach that heralds in the western hemisphere, the dawn of a newer and better day”.

Obama himself had indicated a new form of relationship in which there would be “no senior or junior partner” and that he did not come here to debate the past.

“I came here to deal with the future,” he said to loud applause at the ceremonial opening, adding that while it was important to learn from history “we can’t be trapped by it.

“As neighbours we have a responsibility to each other and to our citizens and by working together we can take important steps forward to advance prosperity and security and liberty and that’s the 21st century agenda that we come together to enact”.

But the middle aged Sandinista leader, while acknowledging that the new US president was promoting a different agenda, was nonetheless seeking to ensure that Obama did not fall back into the old habit of his predecessors by supporting rebels' causes as had been the case in Nicaragua that led to the death of thousands of his citizens.

Obama sat and listened as Ortega punctuated his address with several references to the changing Americas in which “all countries big and small would have the same rights”. He was also convinced that Latin and Central America as well as the English speaking Caribbean would soon be a force to reckon with as a result of the integration initiatives being promoted by Venezuela and Cuba.

Cuba is the only hemispheric country not being represented at the three-day summit, but Havana would be pleased that Venezuela and its allies within the Alternative Bolivarian for the People’s of our Americas (ALBA), which also includes Nicaragua, have vowed not to  sign the “Declaration of Port of Spain” in solidarity with Cuba.

Moreover, the new US leader heard calls from his Argentinean counterpart, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, as well as his Caribbean hosts that he should not waste the opportunity for improving relations with the hemisphere’s only Communist country.

Ortega was concerned that Cuba’s exclusion was due solely to the fact “that its crime has been one of independence and fighting for the sovereignty of its people” and to show his solidarity with Havana, he refused to call the forum here “the Summit of the Americas”.

“I don’t feel comfortable attending it. I simply refuse to call it Summit of the Americas. The summit is still subjected to the colonising policies,” Ortega said, convinced that “the day will come when Cuba will be incorporated into the affairs of this hemisphere”.

For CARICOM, the summit provided yet another avenue to reiterate its support for Havana.

“We have made it clear at every summit that the formal inclusion of Cuba into the mainstream of hemispheric affairs remains a priority for us. We are convinced now that the new US administration fully understands the need for new approaches in a new era which will lead to changes including the lifting of the embargo,” said CARICOM chairman Dean Barrow, the Prime Minister of Belize.

“We in CARICOM stand ready to assist in the promotion of the dialogue between our two neighbours in the complex process of building a relationship and reversing 50 years of non engagement,” he added.

And even as Obama was announcing a number of new multi-million dollar initiatives to help countries, including those in the Caribbean, to deal with the ongoing global economic crisis, climate change, the illegal drug trade, Washington was being reminded that the decision of the G-20 countries to provide billions of dollars to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to assist both developed and developing countries overcome the financial crisis must not be at the expense of small vulnerable states.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has also warned that the worsening economic crisis is dampening expectations of a quick return to normalcy and is also predicting an increase in unemployment and lower investments in the Americas.

In a report providing an overview of the policy measures adopted by governments of the Americas up to March 31, this year, ECLAC said “there can be little doubt that the world is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s.

It said that the long build-up in uncertainty is preventing the credit markets from returning to normality, despite the efforts of monetary authorities to inject liquidity.

“Against this background, the recession is slowly worsening as a result of huge losses of both financial and non-financial wealth, particularly in developed countries but in emerging economies as well.

“The extreme negative picture is dampening expectations, and this, in turn is giving rise to a slump in labour markets and to lower investment and consumption levels,” ECLAC said in the report titled “The Reactions of Governments of the Americas to the International Crisis”.

President Obama has promised to meet Caribbean leaders at a full summit in Washington later this year and during his bilateral discussions with them on Friday night issues ranging from gun and drug trafficking to helping the Caribbean access aid quickly in times of disaster were among matters discussed.

“What we got from President Obama was a clear and profound understanding of the situation facing the Caribbean and a willingness to work with us,” said Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Washington is providing US$30 million to help CARICOM strengthen cooperation in security in the region, and St. Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas said the regional leaders had raised serious concerns about proposed legislation in the US Congress that could hurt their lifeline offshore financial sector.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham told CMC that his country was following the tax haven bill because “if passed it would affect the Bahamas very negatively.

“There is no justification for it and the US Congress people were not able to provide a justification for it. We think it is a misguided initiative as far as the Bahamas are concerned,” he said, pointing out that Nassau has been cooperating with Washington on the tax haven issues.

“We have a tax exchange information agreement with them. The Treasury Department, the IRS will all certify that all requests made to the Bahamas have been responded to appropriately and we can’t fathom why or how our name could be included on such a list with the United States.”

Douglas said that President Obama appeared to “understand the implications for the Caribbean”, with Barrow adding there was need for a better understanding of the offshore jurisdictions in small developing countries that were forced upon them since the onset of globalisation.

CMC/pr/09