Hemisphere’s Leaders Signal Fresh Start With U.S./Caracas dispatches envoy to US

Hemisphere’s Leaders Signal Fresh Start With U.S.
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: April 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/americas/20prexy.html?th&emc=th


PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — Leaders from the Western Hemisphere, inspired by a new American president, closed a two-day summit meeting proclaiming a new dawn for relations in the region, which had been marked by bitter disagreements in recent years with the United States.

The antagonism seemed to melt away, replaced by a palpable enthusiasm for a new openness from the United States and hopes of improved relations for Washington with Venezuela and Cuba, which emerged as a core issue here.

The newfound togetherness was a turning point for the region, leaders here said, at a time when the ability to work together could prove critical to weathering the global economic crisis, which threatens to reverse gains the region has made in alleviating poverty in the past several years.

“There was a spirit of good will that went way beyond the wildest dreams of any one of us,” Patrick Manning, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said Sunday.

Some of that good will went too far for President Obama’s critics in Washington, where seemingly friendly images of him with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Mr. Obama’s overtures to Cuba drew criticism from Republican lawmakers.

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said on CNN that it was “irresponsible for the president” to be seen laughing and joking with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,” referring to Mr. Chávez.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pointed to Cuba’s estimated 200 political prisoners. “Release the prisoners and we’ll talk to you,” he said of the Cuban government on Fox News Sunday, adding, “Put up or shut up.”

Mr. Obama defended his overtures at a news conference on Sunday, saying the handshakes and the polite conversation he shared with Mr. Chávez here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”

Wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America, he said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, whose relations with the United States have been badly strained.

But he also sought to calibrate his message, saying Sunday that he had “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisting that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.

“That’s our lodestone, our North Star,” Mr. Obama said.

Expectations had been low for the fifth Summit of the Americas, where Mr. Obama joined 33 other leaders on his first trip to Latin America and the Caribbean since taking office. The last such summit meeting, in Argentina in 2005, was marked by violent riots and anti-American rants by Mr. Chávez.

Leaders left here almost shell-shocked by the lack of tension at this year’s gathering, with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, saying he was “extremely surprised” by what transpired.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada said, “The most remarkable thing about this conference was the failure to fulfill expectations of great confrontation.”

Despite the warm feelings, some old tensions remained. President Evo Morales of Bolivia confronted Mr. Obama during a private session on Saturday with a charge that the United States had plotted to assassinate him. Mr. Obama responded on Sunday, saying, “I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments.”

And President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, an old Washington nemesis, sought to embarrass Mr. Obama in a nearly one-hour speech filled with anti-American vitriol in which he likened the American embargo of Cuba to the Berlin Wall.

Summit meeting organizers on the island of Trinidad, which was transformed into a virtual police state for three days, tamped down Mr. Chávez’s impulses to grandstand before the cameras by keeping the meetings closed-door. By the conference’s end, Mr. Chávez said he was ready to send an ambassador to the United States.

Still, Mr. Obama said Sunday that the Venezuelan leader’s inflammatory rhetoric had been “a source of concern,” adding that “the test for all of us is not simply words, but also deeds.”

Mr. Obama said he was not worried about the political fallout, saying that he tries to figure out “what’s right in terms of America interests. And on this one, I think I’m right.”

Hoping to push the process forward, leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have volunteered to aid in a reconciliation between the United States and Cuba. “Brazil would be able to help,” Mr. da Silva said Sunday. In an interview published Sunday in the Spanish newspaper ABC, he said the United States should not wait for Cuba to take the next step in efforts to end their half-century of feuding.

While Cuba did not dominate all the deliberations, it overshadowed closed-door discussions here about regional energy needs, climate change, regional drug policy and the global economic crisis. The leaders ultimately agreed to work to strengthen the Inter-American Development Bank to assist countries struggling with a lack of access to credit.

Mr. Manning said that the final declaration from Port of Spain did not properly reflect the current global crisis because negotiations over the document began more than a year and a half ago.

He denied that conflicts at the 2005 meeting, or Mr. Chávez’s history of using such events to rail against the United States and others, had anything to do with keeping the leaders’ discussions private. Public scrutiny “stifles a full and free expression of views,” Mr. Manning said, which “could lead in some instances to posturing.”

Mr. Chávez took the initiative Saturday, saying he was naming Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s representative to the Organization of American States, to be his new ambassador to Washington.

Mr. Chávez had ejected the American ambassador to Venezuela in September, saying he had discovered an American-backed plot to remove him from power. Washington responded in kind.

The State Department said that Mr. Chávez approached Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss returning ambassadors to their respective posts in Caracas and Washington. The State Department called it “a positive development.”








Caracas dispatches envoy to US
By Benedict Mander in Port of Spain and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 19 2009 19:04 | Last updated: April 20 2009 01:46
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ccd40d9e-2d0a-11de-8710-00144feabdc0.html


The Obama administration on Sunday welcomed Venezuela’s announcement that it is sending an ambassador to Washington amid efforts to show a common front at the end of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The move followed a high-profile handshake between Barack Obama, US president, and Hugo Chávez, his Venezuelan counterpart, who was a vociferous critic of the former Bush administration and an ally of some of its most intractable foes.

Speaking on CBS, David Axelrod, one of Mr Obama’s top advisers, said the US welcomed what he described as “an overture from President Chávez to restore our respective ambassadors, something we want to [do]”.

But suspicions remain between Washington and some of the continent’s leftwing leaders, despite Mr Obama’s declared intention to recast US relations with Cuba, the island which dominated the weekend’s events despite not being invited.

On Sunday Mr Obama described comments by Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, that Havana was willing to discuss human rights “as a sign of progress”, while stressing the US’s call for Havana to free political prisoners and reduce charges on remittances. He also highlighted that the US would not overnight change policy on its nearly half-century-old embargo on Cuba.

But an overwhelming number of Latin American leaders at the event called on Mr Obama to drop the embargo immediately. Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua refused to sign the summit’s final declaration because of Cuba’s exclusion.

“It would be rational for Cuba to be present at the next summit,” said José Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, who proposed that Cuba’s suspension from the group be revoked.

At a final press conference, Mr Obama said he had “great differences” with Mr Chávez on economic and foreign policy while denouncing the Venezuelan leader’s “inflammatory” rhetoric towards the US and its alleged interference in neighbouring countries’ affairs.

But defending what he said was now a “more constructive relationship with Venezuela”, Mr Obama said: “On the other hand, Venezuela is a country whose defence budget is probably one six hundredth of the US ... It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr Chávez we are endangering the strategic interests of the US.”

Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington was recalled towards the end of the Bush administration at the same time that the US’s envoy was expelled from Caracas, although the US and Venezuela maintain diplomatic relations.

The moves ran in parallel to a similar withdrawal of ambassadors between the US and Bolivia.

At the summit, Mr Chávez sent out a series of warm signals towards Mr Obama. On Saturday he handed him a book about Latin America’s exploitation by colonial powers over five centuries and told reporters: “We have started off on the right foot. It’s time to have a true start of a new history.”

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, was more circumspect about relations with the new US administration. “One hundred days have gone by and we in Bolivia have yet to feel any changes,” he said. “The policy of conspiracy continues.”

At the centre of discussions was how the region can revive its ailing economies as a result of the global financial crisis.

Other concerns included policy on crime, energy and immigration.