At summit, Obama gets friendly with Chavez

At summit, Obama gets friendly with Chavez

• By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer Mark S. Smith, Associated Press Writer – 24 mins ago
  

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – President Barack Obama extended a hand to America's hemispheric neighbors on Saturday at a summit where he offered a new beginning for U.S.-Cuba relations and greeted Venezuela's fiery, leftist president who gave him a book about Latin America's exploitation by foreign powers.
U.S. relations with Havana and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez took center stage at the Summit of the Americas in this island capital. Obama signaled he was ready to accept Cuban President Raul Castro's proposal of talks on issues once off-limits for Cuba, including the scores of political prisoners held by the communist government.
Obama shook hands with Chavez, a leader who once likened former President George W. Bush to the devil, and casually exclaimed, "Como estas?"
"I think it was a good moment," Chavez said, describing his first grip and grin with Obama. "I think President Obama is an intelligent man, compared to the previous U.S. president."
Then, as the first full day of meetings began in the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, just off Venezuela's coast, Chavez walked over to Obama, patted the president on the shoulder and handed him the book, "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano, an essay about U.S. and European economic and political interference in the region.
Obama was taking part in a series of plenary sessions, group gatherings and one-on-one meetings that the White House hoped to squeeze into a busy schedule. He hoped to make time for individual sessions with leaders from Canada, Colombia, Peru, Haiti and Chile, aides reported.
At his first meeting with South American leaders, Obama waited several minutes while security officers and members of the media pushed noisily into the room. Somebody accidentally hit a light switch, prompting Obama to ask: "Who turned off the lights, guys?" He said he hoped events would go more smoothly during the meeting where he said he would talk to the leaders about energy, security and other topics. "I have a lot to learn and I'm very much looking forward to listening," the president said.
In an opening speech to the 34-nation gathering on Friday, the president promised a new agenda for the Americas, as well as a new style.
"We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms," Obama said to loud applause. "But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations."
Obama also extended a hand to a leader Ronald Reagan spent years trying to drive from power: Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. The Sandinista president stepped up and introduced himself, U.S. officials reported.
Yet soon after, Ortega, who was ousted in 1990 elections that ended Nicaragua's civil war but who was returned to power by voters in 2006, delivered a blistering 50-minute speech that denounced capitalism and U.S. imperialism as the root of much hemispheric mischief. The address even recalled the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, though Ortega said the new U.S. president could not be held to account for that.
"I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old," Obama said, to laughter and applause from the other leaders.
But perhaps the biggest applause line was his call for a fresh start in relations between Washington and Havana.
"I know there's a longer journey that must be traveled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," he said.
On Tuesday, Obama ordered an easing of travel and remittance restrictions for Americans with relatives in Cuba. Within hours, Castro — who took over from his ailing brother Fidel a year ago — responded with an offer of talks on "everything" that divides the two countries.
The White House welcomed the offer, but suggested actions would be better, such as releasing some of Havana's scores of political prisoners.
Added Obama: "I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking. But I do believe that we can move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction."
Cuba became a dominant issue even though the summit was taking place amid the worst global downturn since the Great Depression.
To Latin American nations reeling from a sudden plunge in exports, Obama promised a new hemispheric growth fund, an initiative to increase Caribbean security and a new regional partnership to develop alternative energy sources and fight global warming.
But most of all, he offered an end to old hemispheric arguments.
"I didn't come here to debate the past," Obama said. "I came here to deal with the future ... We must learn from history. But we can't be trapped by it."

Congratulations to both heads of state. We hope the symbolic handshake will lead to real and serious dialogue that will be followed by concrete and constructive actions based on mutual respect. Ayibobo pou Chavez e Obama!!!

The white curse





On the first day of this year, freedom in this world turned 200. But no-one noticed, or almost no-one. A few days later the country where this birth occurred, Haiti, found itself in the media spotlight. Not for the anniversary of universal freedom but because there had been a bloodbath that culminated in the ousting of President Aristide.
Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery. However, almost all encyclopedias and textbooks attribute this honourable deed to England. It is true that one fine day the empire that had been the champion in the slave trade changed its mind. But abolition in Britain took place in 1807, three years after the Haitian Revolution, and it was so unconvincing that in 1832 Britain had to ban slavery again.
There is nothing new about this slight of Haiti. For two centuries it has suffered scorn and punishment. Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner and champion of liberty at the same time, warned that Haiti had created a bad example and argued it was necessary to ‘confine the plague to the island’. His country heeded him. It was 60 years before the US granted diplomatic recognition to this freest of nations. Meanwhile, in Brazil, disorder and violence came to be called ‘haitianism’. It was not until 1888 that Brazil abolished slavery – the last country in the world to do so.
•

Since its revolution, Haiti has been capable only of mounting tragedies. Once a happy and prosperous colony, it is now the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Revolutions, certain specialists have concluded, lead straight to the abyss. Others have hinted that the Haitian tendency to fratricide derives from its savage African heredity. The rule of the ancestors. The black curse that engenders crime and chaos.
Of the white curse nothing was said.
•

The French Revolution had abolished slavery, but Napoleon revived it. To reinstate slavery in Haiti, France sent more than 50 shiploads of soldiers. The country’s blacks rose up and defeated France and won national independence and freedom for the slaves. In 1804, they inherited a land that had been razed to make sugar-cane plantations and consumed by civil war. And they inherited ‘the French debt’. France made Haiti pay dearly for the humiliation it inflicted on Napoleon. The newly born nation had to pay a gigantic indemnification for the damage it had caused in winning its freedom: 150 million gold francs, the equivalent of 21.7 billion in today’s dollars, or 44 times Haiti’s current yearly budget. It took far more than a century to pay off the debt, which ballooned with usurious interest rates. Finally in 1938 Haiti made the last payment.
•

In exchange for this fortune, France officially recognized the new nation. No other countries did so. Haiti was born condemned to solitude.
Not even Simon Bolivar recognized Haiti, though he owed it everything. In 1816 it was Haiti that furnished Bolivar with boats, arms and soldiers when he showed up defeated and asking for shelter and help. Haiti gave him everything with one condition: that he free the slaves – an idea that had not occurred to him until then. The great man triumphed in his war of independence and showed his gratitude by sending a sword as a gift to Port-au-Prince. Of recognition he made no mention.
In reality the Spanish colonies that had become independent countries continued to allow slavery, although some had laws against it. Bolivar proclaimed his own such law in 1821 but news of it didn’t travel far. In 1851, 30 years later, Colombia abolished slavery. Venezuela followed suit in 1854.
•

In 1915 the US Marines landed in Haiti. They stayed 19 years. The first thing they did was occupy the customs house. The occupying army suspended the salary of the Haitian President until he agreed to sign off on the liquidation of the Bank of the Nation, which became a branch of City Bank of New York. The President and other blacks were barred entry into the private hotels, restaurants and clubs of the foreign occupying power. The occupiers didn’t dare re-establish slavery but they did impose forced labour for the building of public works. And they killed a lot of people. It wasn’t easy to quell the fires of resistance. The guerrilla chief, Charlemagne Peralte, was exhibited in the public square, crucified on a door to teach the people a lesson.
This civilizing mission ended in 1934. The occupiers withdrew, having created a National Guard to exterminate any possible trace of democracy. They did the same in Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. A short time after, Duvalier became Haiti's equivalent of Somoza and Trujillo.
•

And so, from dictator to dictator, from promise to betrayal, one misfortune followed another.
Aristide, the rebel priest, became president in 1991. He lasted a few months before the US helped to oust him, took him, subjected him to a certain treatment, and then sent him back in the arms of Marines to resume his post. Then, again in 2004, the US helped to remove him from power, and yet again there was killing. And yet again the Marines came back, as they always seem to, like the flu.
But the international experts are far more destructive than invading troops. Placed under strict orders from the World Bank and the IMF, Haiti obeyed every instruction even if it meant there would be neither bread nor salt. The Government’s credit was frozen; the subsidies and tariffs that had protected national production were eliminated. Rice farmers, once the majority, soon became beggars or boat people. Many have ended in the depths of the Caribbean; only these shipwreck victims aren’t Cuban, so their plight never makes the papers.
Today, Haiti imports all of its rice from the US where international experts, who are rather distracted people, forgot to prohibit tariffs and subsidies.
•

On the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, there is a large sign that reads: ‘Road to Ruin’. On the other side is the black hell. Blood and hunger, misery and disease. In this much-feared hell, everyone is a sculptor. Haitians collect tin cans and scrap metal that they cut and shape and hammer with old-world mastery, creating marvels that are sold in the street markets.
Haiti is a country that has been thrown away, as an eternal punishment of its dignity. There it lies, like scrap metal. It awaits the hands of its people.

Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America's foremost writers, lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. IPS Columnist Service.

Se lan men sa a yo pi montre.Lanmen ki fè anpil moun lan ekstrèm dwat tankou moun lan FOX TV yo mande anraje ,se sa yo rele "black power" lan men an ou byen "ghetto" lan men an .Se lè de moun sere la men an dyagonal.
Se tankou mesye yo di menm si youn te di bagay ki pa plezan ,nou se de nèg nwa ki prezidan peyi ,kote gen yon pakèt blan ki pa vle wè nou.
Ann antann nou.

Wifout Marc,
Kote ou gad la a ?sanble OBAMA pa p fè kont ak goch amerik Latin lan nou.Li san lè mete pye l lan bounda zanmi w yo ann Ayiti tou wi (lol)

Mwen pa kwè li te nesesè pou Daniel Ortega te raple bagay baie des cochons an.Ki jan yo vle pou genyen yon nouvo depa si yap raple bagay ki te pase depi OBama te genyen 3 mwa depi li fet.sa raplem fab le loup et l'agneau.Fok neg sa yo sispann plenyen mwen pa di pa genyen move zak ki te fet non men si 2 moun vle rekonsilye youn pa ka rete ap di tou tan ou sonje ou te fout mwen yon kalot.

Fok neg tankou Chavez ,Daniel Ortega, Evo Morales mete yon soudinn nan twonpet yo.pito yo pwofite de manda Obama pou yo chanje sitiyasyon pep la kay yo.konsa ya fè plis pou ideyoloji yo a.mesye dwat reyaktyonè yo deja di ke Obama se yon sosyalis deguise se pa tou den kou li pral chanje perez saa ki la kay reyaktyonè yo.se pa moman saa pou Presidan sid ameriken yo ap reveye le chat qui dort.tankou Obama di ya fok frè Castro rouvri grip rejim lan genyen sou pep kiben ;se pou castro pemet moun kritike li tankou li kritike Obama ak tout presidan ameriken ;li pa ka vle se li sel ki genyen dwa dyol li Kiba epi tout lot kiben dwe rete tankou yon bann mouton ap di "Si Senor".nanpren moun ki ka ere anba Ayatolah Fidel nan 21 eme syek la (lol)

Joel a écrit:Se lan men sa a yo pi montre.Lanmen ki fè anpil moun lan ekstrèm dwat tankou moun lan FOX TV yo mande anraje ,se sa yo rele "black power" lan men an ou byen "ghetto" lan men an .Se lè de moun sere la men an dyagonal.
Se tankou mesye yo di menm si youn te di bagay ki pa plezan ,nou se de nèg nwa ki prezidan peyi ,kote gen yon pakèt blan ki pa vle wè nou.
Ann antann nou.

Wifout Marc,
Kote ou gad la a ?sanble OBAMA pa p fè kont ak goch amerik Latin lan nou.Li san lè mete pye l lan bounda zanmi w yo ann Ayiti tou wi (lol)

Joel

Calmez-vous ! C'est une façade ce qui se passe au Sommet des Amériques.

La preuve , il n'y a pas de consensus entre les leaders des Amériques.