The Secret Summit - What Happened at the Port of Spain

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http://counterpunch.com/castro04212009.html


Neither represented nor excommunicated, only today could I learn what was discussed at the Summit of Port of Spain. They led us all to entertain hopes that the meeting would not be secret, but those running the show deprived us of such an interesting intellectual exercise. We shall get to know the substance but not the tone of voice, the look in the eyes or the facial look that can be a reflection of a person's ideas, ethic and character. A Secret Summit is worse than a silent movie. For a few minutes the television showed some images. There was a gentleman on Obama's left whom I could not identify clearly as he laid his hand on Obama's shoulder, like an eight-year-old boy on a classmate in the front row. Then, another member of his entourage standing beside him interrupted the president of the United States for a dialogue; those coming up to address him had the appearance of an oligarchy that never knew what hunger is and who expect to find in Obama's powerful nation the shield that will protect the system from the fearsome social changes.

Up to that moment, a bizarre atmosphere prevailed at the Summit.

The artistic function arranged by the host was really spectacular. I have seldom seen something like it; perhaps never. A good announcer, apparently a Trinitarian, had proudly said that it was unique.

It was a feast of culture and luxury. I meditated about it. I calculated the cost of all that and suddenly I realized that no other country in the Caribbean could afford such a display, that the venue of the summit is very wealthy, a sort of United States surrounded by small poor countries. Could Haiti with its exuberant culture or Jamaica, Granada, Dominica, Guyana, Belize or any other have hosted such a luxurious summit? Their beaches may be wonderful but they are not surrounded by the towers that distinguish the Trinitarian landscape and accumulate with that non-renewable raw material the enormous resources that sustain today the riches of that country. Almost every other island in the Caribbean community located to the north of this is directly battered by the hurricanes of increasing intensity that hit our sister islands of the Caribbean region every year.

-very, looong but interesting snip-
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