By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press
 
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The United States and other key players in the Organization of American States (OAS) including Canada worked to defuse the issue of Cuba’s 47-year suspension from the hemisphere’s biggest club, fearing it would overtake this weekend’s Summit of the Americas.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President Barack Obama and 32 other leaders converged on the hot and humid Caribbean island Friday.

Cuba’s Raul Castro was the noticeable absentee, a fact that has been lamented by most of the other leaders including summit host Patrick Manning. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and a handful of others vowed to block the summit’s final declaration over the Cuba problem.

In the most significant preemptive move, the secretary general of the Organization of American State (OAS) announced Friday he would ask members to readmit Cuba.

Jose Miguel Insulza has underlined in the past that the assembly is the place for changes to be made to membership, not the summit.

“We’re going step by step,” OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said, explaining that he will ask the group’s general assembly in May to annul the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba.

Obama has been making conciliatory efforts toward Cuba over the past week, lifting restrictions on travel to the island for Cuban Americans and on the amount of money that relatives can send back to the island.

At a speech during the summit’s opening ceremony, Obama extended a hand to his critics in the region, promising a new, more respectful partnership with the hemisphere while urging them to abandon “stale debates.”

He met the Cuba question head on.

“The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” he said to applause. “I know there is a longer journey that must be travelled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day.”

Castro surprised many Thursday by responding positively to Obama’s overtures, saying he was willing to have an open discussion with the United States.

“We could be wrong, we admit it. We’re human beings,” Castro said. “We’re willing to sit down to talk as it should be done, whenever.”

Harper said the Canadian government was “hoping to see a thaw,” in U.S.-Cuba relations. The Conservative government has been trying to encourage both sides in their talks.

“Obviously, President Obama has taken some steps and we’re hoping that some of the words we are hearing from the Cuban regime are meaningful,” Harper told U.S. network Fox News Friday from Port of Spain.

But Harper added - as he and his officials have been emphasizing - that they don’t want the Cuba debate to hijack the summit. Harper is keen to talk about trade, public security and other issues on the summit agenda.

“There are certainly more important issues to discuss than Cuban-American relations.”

The Cuba debate has only served to highlight the tenuous state of the summit.

To date, no country had yet stepped forward to offer to host the next meeting. There was grumbling about poor organization in Port of Spain, of indifference by some Latin American countries, and of Cuba’s continued exclusion from the event.

Without the summit, Canada would have no regular venue to meet with leaders in the region and talk trade, investment and security.

“People are looking around and thinking, ‘I’m going to six to eight summits a year - why am I going to this one too? Just because the Americans are there, just to meet Obama?”‘ said Carlo Dade, executive director of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas.

“This summit has to step up and start delivering something, show real progress.”

The 2005 summit, in Mar de Plata, Argentina, was widely viewed as a failure. A push by the United States, Canada and a handful of others to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) collapsed at the table and was never resuscitated. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez rallied protesters against former U.S. president George Bush and his policies at a stadium nearby, and some leaders left early.

Latin American countries in particular grew used to life without the tight hug of the United States. Brazil recently convened its own meeting of leaders, minus Canada and the United States. Left-leaning nations such as Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua just wrapped up another alternative summit.

Dade argues that the financial crisis offers a real opportunity for leaders to veer away from the motherhood statements and go for something that will prove the usefulness of the process - a commitment to recapitalize the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), for example.

The IDB’s management is under review, but Dade says leaders could make a statement that they’ll pour in more money as soon as possible.

“That’s where Canada could play a role … it’s not going to cost us much, but it takes a bit of leadership,” said Dade.

Insulza also sees room to move on the financial front.

“I sincerely hope there will be concrete results coming out, something like the G20 approved, something to offer to Latin America and the Caribbean third world for the crisis that is falling upon them that they had not created,” Insulza said in an interview.

For Harper, the summit is another opportunity to emphasize his Americas policy, announced two years ago. During that time, he has visited several countries in the region, concluded trade deals with Colombia and Peru, and reinforced relationships with a number of leaders.

Canada is now the biggest international donor to the Caribbean, and the second biggest to Haiti.

But some insiders warn that the Conservative government has done little to raise the visibility of Canada in the region, and as a result has not significantly expanded its influence and leverage.

“We have been extraordinarily inept at communicating to these countries what we have done,” said one Foreign Affairs source.

“That’s in part because this government has decided that public diplomacy is something it doesn’t like. The embassies and ambassadors and high commissioners are gagged.”

Dade says the summit is a chance for Harper to toot Canada’s horn.

Said Dade: “What we do here, how the PM interacts, what he says, can either underline our role and reinforce that we’re focused on the Americas, or a weak performance with nothing to add at the summit can undermine the attempts being made to strength Canadian engagement in the region.”

Courtesy of:  http://ca.news.yahoo.com