The Fifth Summit of the Americas, an initiative of the Organization of American States (OAS), will meet on April 17-19, 2009 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. President Obama has recently confirmed that he will attend the Summit.
Cuba, as previously noted, is the only independent country in the Western Hemisphere that is excluded from the OAS, making Raúl Castro the only head of state in the region without an invitation to the Summit.
Meanwhile, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is a Venezuelan-led regional integration effort that does include Cuba, together with Bolivia, Dominica, Honduras and Nicaragua. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez today announced that the group will meet on April 16, on the eve of the Summit of the Americas. Why the piggy-backed, seemingly competing summits? Chavez says it is to draw attention to the fact that “[Cuba] is the only country of the hemisphere excluded from the Summit of the Americas; this fact needs to be analyzed during the regional meeting. Cuba is part of Latin America.”
The current buzz is on how Obama will address the Cuba issue in the weeks leading up to the Summit, and of course, at the Summit itself, especially after several Latin American countries have called for a change in U.S. policy toward Havana. Some believe that the President will use the Summit as a forum to “bring Cuba in from the cold.” It would be difficult, given the stance of the attendees of the Summit, to ignore the issue altogether: we should expect a sign from the Obama administration soon.
