Category Archives: Caribbean

PM again boasts of Summit

By Sean Douglas
Thursday, April 30 2009

Fifth Summit of the AmericasPRIME Minister Patrick Manning said the Fifth Summit of the Americas is earning TT and Caricom more respect and foreign investment. Addressing the 20th anniversary celebration ceremony of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) on Tuesday, at the Diplomatic Centre, he boasted: “There can be no doubt about the gains to our country and the region from this undertaking. Tourist arrivals will increase and it will certainly be much easier to market our region as a single tourism destination.”
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Cry, the Unforgiven Country: Obama’s ‘Continuity’ in Haiti

The area of Bas-Ravine, in the northern part of Haiti
The area of Bas-Ravine, in the northern part of Haiti
Photo taken by Rémi Kaupp wikipedia.org

By Chris Floyd
April 28, 2009 – chris-floyd.com

Haiti has been a cursed nation throughout its existence. As I noted in a piece in 2004:

Exactly two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves overthrew their French masters — the first successful national slave revolt in history. What Spartacus dreamed of doing, the Haitian slaves actually accomplished. It was a tremendous achievement — and the white West has never forgiven them for it.

In order to win international recognition for their new country, Haiti was forced to pay “reparations” to the slaveowners – a crushing burden of debt they were still paying off at the end of the 19th century. The United States, which refused to recognize the country for more than 60 years, invaded Haiti in 1915, primarily to open it up to “foreign ownership of local concerns.” After 19 years of occupation, the Americans backed a series of bloodthirsty dictatorships to protect these “foreign owners.” And still it goes on.

It certainly does — even under the “enlightened” foreign policy of Barack Obama. As John Caruso reports (in separate pieces in A Distant Ocean and A Tiny Revolution), Obama and his “superstar” secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, are loudly championing the latest egregious, brutal farce that Washington and the West have foisted upon the uppity natives of Haiti.
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Lack of a CARICOM Strategy at the Fifth Summit

By Stephen Kangal
April 24, 2009

Fifth Summit of the AmericasThe hosting of the recently concluded Fifth Summit of the Americas was portrayed as a CARICOM initiative and, as usual, T&T bore the full costs involved.

I am very disturbed that T&T/CARICOM did not act collectively in an effective manner to maximize returns on T&T’s huge and staggering investment. The CARICOM meeting that was scheduled for Thursday 16 April was not held. No effort was made to concretize a CARICOM strategy at the Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Heads of Government held in Belize prior to the Summit.
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The Summit and the lie

By Fidel Castro Ruz
April 22, 2009 – granma.cu

Fidel CastroSome of the things that Daniel told me would be hard to believe if it was not him who told me them and it was not at a Summit of the Americas where they occurred.

The unusual thing is that there was no such consensus on the final document. The ALBA group did not sign it; that was confirmed in the last exchange with Obama in the presence of Manning and the other leaders in the morning of April 19.
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5th Summit of the Americas News: April 19, 2009

Bolivian President Evo Morales at the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

The Fifth Summit of the Americas in pictures

Drummit 2 Summit at the St James Amphitheater in pictures
Photos were taken after the rally was allowed to continue

Obama must denounce plot
BOLIVIA’S PRESIDENT Evo Morales yesterday charged that Americans were behind a plot to assassinate him.

Tensions run high at St James protest
Officers of the Guard and Emergency Branch (GEB) squared off with a coalition group over a drum protest at the St James Ampitheatre.
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5th Summit of the Americas News: April 17, 2009

The Fifth Summit of the Americas in pictures

The Fifth Summit of the Americas in pictures

Obama, Chavez arrive today
After months of preparation, the Fifth Summit of the Americas gets going this evening at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port-of-Spain.

Michelle opts out of Summit

CHAVEZ WARNS OBAMA
Don’t try to set me up at summit

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ramped up his verbal artillery yesterday saying US President Barack Obama should not follow the example of Spain’s King Juan Carlos who told him to shut up during a 2007 summit…
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Sober suggestions for summit war on drugs

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, April 12th 2009

Fifth Summit of the AmericasONE agenda item that no doubt crops up at every Summit of the Americas is the illegal drug trade. The two main mind-altering drugs produced, traded and used in the Western Hemisphere are marijuana and cocaine. Note-I have not mentioned alcohol, which is also mind-altering but which has been legalised globally. At the Fifth Summit, many leaders will slosh down the finest liquors taxpayers’ money can buy. Some of them will get embarrassingly drunk-as happened at recent top-level international conferences.
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Let’s get U S-Cuba relations straight

Dr. Kwame Nantambu
April 11, 2009

Raul Castro and Barack ObamaThe purpose of this article is to set the record straight in regard to the Cuban issue at the Fifth Summit of the Americas that is scheduled for April 17-19 in Trinidad.

Indeed, the record shows that Fidel Castro came to power through armed revolution on the 1st January 1959. He overthrew General Fulgencio Batista.

On 3rd January 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower severed diplomatic ties with Cuba.
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Solidarity with Guadeloupe

By Gerry Kangalee
Food and Fuel Forum
43 Fifth St., Barataria, Trinidad and Tobago
February 18, 2009

Food and Fuel ForumThe Food and Fuel Forum of Trinidad and Tobago offers, through the General Union of Guadeloupean Workers, UGTG, its deepest solidarity with the LKP, a grouping of forty seven peoples organisations, the workers and people of Guadeloupe as you pursue your general strike against the extreme exploitation that has been the lot of the masses of people in the French colonies in the Caribbean. We in Trinidad and Tobago also suffer the effects of the capitalist economic crisis and strongly empathise with the people of Guadeloupe.
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Timing is Ripe for Talking to the Cubans

By Stephen Kangal
February 04, 2009

Fidel CastroContrary to the view expressed by Foreign Affairs Minister Gopee-Scoon the time is most propitious and ripe for the Inter-American System to be initiating dialogue with the regime of Raul Castro. President Barack Obama has signaled in clear, unambiguous language that US rapprochement with Cuba is on the cards especially with the closure of the Gitmo Detention Centre. He has also relaxed travel restrictions to Cuba by Cuban-Americans.
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