Summit of the Americas "Results"
Submitted by fyl on Tue, 2012/04/17 - 07:09.
The OAS Summit of the Americas took place this past weekend in Colombia. This is where all the countries of the OAS get together and, in theory, agree on something. Not anything that really happens of course, but politics. This meeting was quite different from past ones and the next one (scheduled to take place in Panama in 2015) may not happen unless something changes.
First, what was done: A US-Colombia free trade agreement seems to have been agreed upon. That, unfortunately, seems to be about it.
In US media it seems that about all that got covered was the story about the US Secret Service, some US soldiers and Colombian prostitutes. While the press tells us how irresponsible, ... they were, this is probably better press for the US than what really happened at the conference. Here goes:
- Latin American leaders were united in saying the War on Drugs does not work and something needs to be changed. (The see themselves as victims of the US addiction.)
- All wanted Cuba to attend. Ecuador actually boycotted the summit over this issue and it seems unlikely that the 2015 summit can happen unless this issue is resolved. What makes this particularly huge is that even Colombia supported this.
- All supported Argentine control of the Falkland Islands. Argentina walked out of the conference when this position could not be agreed upon (due to the US and Canadian lack of support).
Note that the Canadian government supported the US positions. Something that seems pretty out of line with Canadian policies with regard to, for example, Cuba.
In The Real News coverage of the conference, the success of CELAC is mentioned. CELAC is more or like the OAS except without US and Canadian membership.
Falklands
"All supported Argentine control of the Falkland Islands..." true, but one drawback to this setup is that no one bothered to ask the Falkland Islanders themselves, which sort of annoys some of them, including this guy on the Falkland Islands Assembly: Will no one listen to us Falkland Islanders?.
China
should be invited as they have surpassed USA as major trading partner of most the successful South American Countries. Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile economies are flush digging stuff out of the earth and shipping to China. Italy and other European banks are holding a lot of paper for these 3 countries as most consumers in these countries personal debt has soared in last 4 years-similar to USA before 2008. Brazil is scary how much the people are borrowing but I do not think the house will crash till after the Olympics 2 years from now. Similar thing happened to them in the mid-nineties when the economy collapsed for 10 years.I also see USA/China on a collision course at some point perhaps 20 years from now and a canal in Nicaragua would be easy for them to build-even if did not make economic sense from traditional ROI. They are spending 60billion on high speed rail with 10,000 Engineers involved in the project at this time. This is biggest project on the planet and when finished all big cities will be connected.
Digging a trench through Nic is probably 20Billion project. I read that it will be 40kilometers north of the Rio San Juan. I don't see anything else in Nicaragua that the Chinese would want.
Actually
Canada's position on Cuba hasn't changed. The two countries maintain good relations, but the OAS charter, adopted in 2001, says the OAS is only for democracies.
The big surprise in Canada was Harper admitting that the war on drugs wasn't working. "What I think everybody believes," Harper said, "is that the current approach is not working. But it is not clear what we should do." At least, Canada and the US listened this time.
Cuba is in, likeit or not (but what to do with Castro?)
Cuba isn't technically out of the OAS, they are temporarily barred from representation; they were suspended, but that was lifted a few years ago. Their problem is the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It is an odd push for Cuban representation, really. Castro has never had anything good to say of the Organization and has as recently as a few years ago (Granmna and elsewhere), again repeatedly stated that Cuba would never participate in the disgraceful OAS. Everyone wants Cuba in, except U.S., maybe Canada, and, apparently, Cuba (which might be the only three countries with an administration that has taken the time to actually read the relevant OAS documents?). I am not sure the OAS can vote for and enforce mandatory Cuban participation. But, maybe the OAS will take Castro (doesn't matter which one) in the middle of the night and fly him to Panama for that Summit, sort of a political reverse of those Aristide-Zelaya flights. Like it or not, the final vote is in, won by those who do not consider previous votes relevant or binding: Cuba is in or there is no more OAS, the only problem besides the U.S. is Castro himself.
Canada agreeing with the US
Canada agreeing with the US on this is so ridiculous! We have trade with them and is one of the top tourist destinations for Canadians. I think maybe Harper went along as a salve against taking a mildly contradictory position on the drug war. What really surprised me is that LePrensa took a very negative view of the idea of Cuba being admitted, not sure what the leanings of the Nicaraguan papers are. Looks as though the newly for formed group of Pacific states (another group without Canada and the US) has decided they may invite Canada and Japan. We need to wake up and realize we can't just automatically go along with whatever the US does, the world has changed, our customers are rapidly becoming the rest of the world and at this point the US needs us almost as much as we need them. We are their number one supplier of oil and I think you may see Harper point this out more and more, this is the second time he has mentioned a differing drug policy in as many months, in February he stated that perhaps decriminalization should be looked at. That's a huge philosophical leap for him. Wow, legalized brothels, legal dope, Canada is gonna be the hot new retirement country lol.
I think any Party Leader
in Canada that was perceived as automatically going along with whatever the U.S. does, especially these days, wouldn't be in power for long.