The event, organised by the Organisation of American States (OAS), will have around 34 leaders from throughout the Americas in attendance, most of whom began arriving in Trinidad yesterday, including Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Caricom countries alone make up almost half of the OAS membership with 14 countries.

Prime Minister Manning has said the summit provides an opportunity for Trinidad and Tobago and its Caricom partners to play a leadership role in the geopolitics of the hemisphere.

The Summit’s top talking point is expected to be the global recession.

Analysts say prudent economic policies adopted by several countries in the Americas region have helped them weather the recession better than in previous decades.

Security concerns including crime, fuelled by the downturn in some regional economies, and the drug trade elsewhere in the region, are widespread and will also be a major discussion point at the summit.

In fact, the summit’s draft declaration has a section on strengthening public security.

Cuba is expected to be another top agenda issue for both the US and Latin American countries.

According to the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), President Obama will travel to Trinidad in the knowledge that the biggest diplomatic challenge he will face is most likely the question of US policy towards Cuba.

A BBC report noted that while the US government maintains an opposition to Cuba’s membership in the hemispheric grouping, a growing number of Latin American countries are calling for its re-instatement.

Caricom leaders are expected to support their Latin American counterparts.

Cuba was kicked out of the OAS in 1962 for not being a democracy.

There have also been growing calls, supported by several Caricom leaders, for the U.S. to end its half century embargo against the communist country.

Another COHA perspective on the summit regards Venezuela.

It notes that “while President Chavez initially welcomed Mr. Barack Obama’s election to the U.S. Presidency, their subsequent exchanges have largely been tense and disagreeable unpleasant”.

Mr. Chavez has effectively been leading the call to have Cuba back in the OAS fold.

He has been equally vociferous in demanding that the US drop the trade embargo against Cuba.

The issue of Climate Change, which President Jagdeo has been championing over the years, will also focus prominently on the agenda.

Manning, and Caricom chairman, Belize prime minister Dean Barrow, will address today’s opening ceremony.

Other leaders will give presentations during specific forums: Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines will speak on democratic governance, public security and summit follow-up; President Rene Preval of Haiti will address the issue of human prosperity; while Grenada’s Tillman Thomas is down to give an address on environmental sustainability.

While President Jagdeo is not slated to speak at today’s opening ceremony, the Guyanese head of state had signaled his intention to speak and make meaningful contributions during the plenary sessions, as part of the CARICOM collective, and in an effort to help concretise at least a few issues before the Summit declaration is formalized on Sunday.

President Jagdeo, before leaving Guyana yesterday for the high-profile and much-talked-about Summit, had indicated that he has high expectations that at least ‘a few concrete issues or initiatives’ can emerge out of the long list of pledges currently on the draft declaration to be finalised by the 34 Heads of State and Government that will be in attendance.

A wide-ranging declaration will be issued upon the conclusion of the summit on Sunday, entitled ‘Securing our citizens future by promoting human prosperity, energy security and environmental sustainability’.

The current draft declaration has 66 paragraphs and, according to President Jagdeo, “a whole deal of pledges to cooperate in nutrition, health, housing, education, fighting violence, terrorism and crime, promoting human rights, tackling poverty, advancing our economy, diversifying energy sources, fighting climate change and a hundred other issues that are all part of what we have come to expect as regular communiqués or declarations from these summits”.

“You can see for yourself that it almost touches every issue under the sun; so my expectations and hope is that we can focus on a few issues, very concrete issues or initiatives, that can emerge out of this long list of pledges that we have made but which are often forgotten by the time people leave these summits,” the Guyanese head-of-state told reporters in Guyana prior to his attendance at the Summit.

Alluding to the fact that the (draft) declaration has already been negotiated, President Jagdeo said the document is written in the “typical language of summits of the past”.

“So I hope that our (Guyana’s) presence in Trinidad and Tobago would add value to the process and would allow us to select just a few of these initiatives that we can actually implement. I think that would be the most useful use of our time,” President Jagdeo posited.

“…these meetings, they tend to follow a format because there are so many countries with so many different positions. There is a long process leading up to the meeting to negotiate the output of the meeting and so often every country wants to add their pet area and this invariably extends the output document, the declaration or the communiqué.

“But from a practical purpose, once it starts getting so big and it covers everything and it is mainly decorative in intent, as a practical plan of action, it is not very useful because people tend to commit and then they move off and nothing happens,” President Jagdeo explains.

It is in this regard that the President said it would be better if participants at the Summit should “extract” some specific and ‘earth shattering’ issues that are really “sector-leading or region-moving initiatives”, and narrow-in on those.

OBAMA WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE
President Jagdeo had also expressed a keen interest in the prospect of, along with other regional leaders, working with United States President Barack Obama, noting that Mr. Obama has an “enlightened approach” on many issues that are before the leaders for discussion at the Summit.

“I think we have a greater chance of succeeding at the region; the situation now is very much different than the time when we had the last summit and this is largely because of the enlightened approach of President Obama on many of the issues that are before us for discussion.”

“President Obama has also replaced confrontation with the offer of dialogue on many issues, even with regimes that the U.S. traditionally had not had close engagements or cooperation with; and I think that would also set the tone for the discussions in this Summit of the Americas,” Mr. Jagdeo posited.

FIRST LADY’S ABSENCE:
Reports circulating at the Summit Venue yesterday is that First Lady of the United States Mrs. Michelle Obama will not be attending the event after all, as she has decided to  stay at her White House residence with her daughters Malia, ten, and Sasha, seven, who are enjoying an Easter break from school.

She reportedly decided to abort the Mexico trip which her husband embarked on yesterday, before he flies into Trinidad today.

With much attention being focussed on this week’s Summit, especially with hundreds of international journalists here covering the event, T&T’s Acting Commissioner of Police James Philbert said there is “no room for mistakes or flaws” during this major event.

President Bharrat Jagdeo being greeted by officials on his arrival yesterday in Trinidad for the Fifth Summit of the Americas which begins today.