Despite entering the Fifth Summit of the Americas in an atmosphere ripe for confrontation, the weekend-long meeting turned out to be extraordinarily cordial. Relations between the United States and the Latin American left remain strained, but President Obama’s friendly (if brief) exchanges with Presidents Chávez, Morales, and Ortega indicate a change in the tenor of hemispheric relations.
Obama’s speech openly addressed the imbalanced power relations within the hemisphere that are necessary to acknowledge in order to redefine the relationship between Latin America and the United States. In an unprecedented moment of candor for a US president, Obama said:
I know that promises of partnership have gone unfulfilled in the past, and that trust has to be earned over time. While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. (Applause.) There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values. So I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration. (Applause.)
Open manifestation of the discord between the Latin American left and Obama was limited to Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Evo Morales of Bolivia refusing to sign the Declaration of Port of Spain, but public display of the conflict was sidestepped by having only Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago sign the document in a symbolic “consensus” vote. Notwithstanding Republican Senator John Ensign’s direct criticism of Obama’s cordial encounter with Hugo Chávez, it appears that the two countries may resume diplomatic relations shortly.
The Cuba issue continued to dominate both the English- and Spanish-language media coverage of the Summit, with prominent Latin American leaders of the left, right, and center publicly calling on the Obama administration to unilaterally end the embargo. Even Alvaro Uribe chimed in, saying that “Colombia today feels that Cuba helps efforts toward peace…”
But the widely publicized “melting” of United States’ aggressive foreign policy toward Cuba still faces challenges before it thaws completely. The Obama administration insists that Raul Castro liberate some 80 political prisoners before the US government will normalize diplomatic relations or end the embargo. Castro has stated that he is willing to talk about
Human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything, everything, everything … they want to discuss, but as equals.
It is likely that in exchange Castro will ask Obama to pardon the Cuban political prisoners serving sentences in the United States, whose cases are highly publicized in Cuba by the state press but underreported in the American media.
Of the three Latin American states with whom the US does not currently maintain full diplomacy, US-Bolivian relations remain the most under-emphasized. The Bolivian government uncovered an alleged assassination attempt two days ago, resulting in a shootout and three deaths. The shootout occurred within days of Evo Morales renewing accusations that the US Embassy in La Paz continues to support Eastern separatists bent on assassinating the Bolivian president. At the Summit, Obama responded by condemning “any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments, wherever it happens in the hemisphere.”
Despite continued strain, however, it appears that the hemisphere is truly entering an unprecedented era of good feelings in which the Latin American left and the White House are ready to engage in open dialog. It now remains to be seen if the convivial mood will produce concrete advances in US-Latin American relations.
* Both Obama’s speech and the Declaration of the Port of Spain are available in the Dispatch’s “Documents” section.
Photo credit: White House staff, public domain.
