The northern Colombia city of Cartagena de Indias, the location of the 6th Summit of the Americas, and once a major slave-trading port and subsequently the home of large numbers of people of African descent, would certainly have been of interest to leaders of Caribbean states attending the conference. But apart from that, the summit seems to have provided little else for them to feel good about. The meeting seems to have been conducted in a relatively tranquil atmosphere, and, as reports have indicated, ended on a rather muted note. That situation was reflected in the fact that there was no final declaration coming from the conference.
That two countries, Ecuador and Nicaragua, did not attend the meeting, seems to have provided little occasion for comment or contention, while the absence of President Hugo Chávez’ for obvious reasons, removed any anticipation of verbal warfare or controversy. And even the dissatisfaction of the President of Argentina with the outcome of discussions on the Falklands issue does not seem to have substantially upset the atmosphere.
To that extent President Santos, as host, must have seen the conference as very much a cause for satisfaction. He seems to have been proud of demonstrating to his assembled colleagues that the worst years of uncertainty and tension of his country’s war against the armed traders in narcotics were over, and that Colombia, joining larger Latin American states like Brazil and Argentina, has firmly returned to a period of economic growth. That there was no occasion of a really contentious row between any of his Latin American colleagues and the United States must certainly have satisfied him.
It would not be unreasonable to assume that the real background to the relative quiescence of the summit was the awareness of the leaders that President Obama is on the brink of an election, and that nothing better than the present administration can really be expected from the current contenders for the Republican nomination. President Santos was obviously relieved that President Obama had set the stage for Colombia by finally pushing through the long-negotiated free trade agreement between the two countries, and that it will take effect next month. The President did this at the risk of mortgaging his trade union electoral support, and obviously expected that his Colombian counterpart would reciprocate appropriately in his conduct of the meeting.
In that context we can presume that Santos made sure, on his side, that the issue of the exclusion of Cuba did not turn out to be any political fireball in Obama’s election year. He, as we would say, “took in front” in his opening speech by vigorously calling for the presence of Cuba at the summit, and by implication in the councils of the Organisation of American States, even though the Cuban government has indicated that it has no interest in the latter.
President Obama for his part, while reiterating the return of Cuba to a form of political democracy acceptable to American public opinion as a condition of membership of the Inter-American system, was really not forced to argue the case, his colleagues well recognizing that both his hands and his tongue were bound by the election atmosphere, from any genuflection to Cuba at this point. But his Latin American colleagues of course know, that whatever the verbal opposition to Cuba at the White House or the Congress, and their fear of the Cuban vote in this year’s elections, the United States is, today among the hemispheric states, a major beneficiary of Cuban-American trade as the Cuban government increasingly liberalizes the economic system. And from the Latin American and Caribbean states‘ point of view, this explicit gulf between word and deed is unacceptable, and even hypocritical.
Perhaps the major point of discussion, reflecting increasing fear and concern on the Latin American side, was the insistence by both Latin American and Caribbean governments that the United States, as the largest consumer of narcotics, take the lead and initiate a new approach to the resolution of the problems being created by this now worldwide trade and its attendant ills. Leading the pack on the Latin American and Caribbean side, Colombia and Mexico are convinced that the American approach is wrong, simply forcing the narcotics traders and their armies out of the US and into their countries, and most recently, disastrously into the Central American states. The insistence of the President of Guatemala, before and during the conference that serious consideration should be given to the decriminalization of the narcotics trade reflected this view, and there seems to have been something of a silent assent by many other states. But the American President was clear in his rejection of it.
The obvious latent issue haunting the summit, however, would appear to be that of the ownership of the summit process. To the Latin Americans and Caribbean states, in varying degrees, the conference threw into relief the question of whether the United States is presuming to be the dominant voice and dominant decision-maker in its insistence on the non-acceptance of Cuba. But the emerging alternative view is that decisions on such issues should not be the prerogative of any single country, however powerful, the stance of holding a de facto veto being, in fact, undemocratic.
On the other hand, a majority of the participants have yet not arrived at the situation of wanting to pose a counter veto, this being the non-holding of the conference unless all are invited. There will, no doubt, be continuing discussion on this between now and the next conference, scheduled for Panama in 2015. And it is probably the case that Panama, now fervently seeking to reposition itself as a financial and trading location between the Western Hemisphere and Asia, will hardly want to see an event of this kind dealt with in such a manner that it mars the image that it will be wishing to project of itself.
It would not be surprising if in all of this, Caricom states as a collective system perceive themselves to be somewhat between a rock and a hard place, as what are now called emerging Latin American states are beginning to feel that they can flex their muscles in an environment where their alliances – economic and otherwise – now range well beyond the American hemisphere. Will we then be forced to choose? Those Caricom states now affliliated, or seeking to be, to ALBA may necessarily find themselves following the path of “all invited or no conference”; while others may feel too bound to traditional arrangements to go that far, even while holding to the view that all should be invited.
Perhaps it would be a good thing if we heard from the current Caricom Chairman at the next heads meeting in July, an assessment of relations within the hemisphere as they relate to our collective involvement there. In general, our states went to the summit stressing the need for the Inter-American system to support their priorities of economic and infrastructural integration, finding ways to support the combating of our vulnerability to climate change, and the importance of urgently changing our approach to a narcotics trade that is increasingly worsening our situation of security vulnerability.
It would be useful to hear the Chairman’s assessment too, of the extent to which leading countries of the summit process, including the embattled President Obama, gave them what they would call a sympathetic ear.
