The Fifth Summit of the Americas is now history and the task ahead is to assess the benefits and costs of hosting it, financial and otherwise. Not surprisingly, the official view is that the conference was largely a ’success’, notwithstanding a number of glitches and gaffes, many of which happened behind the scenes. We are being advised that’s where there were some real ’horrors’.

The Prime Minister insists that the summit was a resounding success, and worth every cent which the government spent to host it, which, miraculously, was said to have cost much less than budgeted. In the PM’s view, money was actually saved! He also sought to defuse charges of extravagance by arguing that ’man does not live by bread alone’. This assumes, of course, that most people have bread or that their spiritual needs were met by what took place at the summit.

Some commentators went to the other extreme and characterised the summit as a shameful and obscene waste of scarce public funds. In this view, none of the anticipated benefits were realised, and none will be. In my opinion, there were some benefits, but much less than were claimed by official spokesmen.

In terms of the conference itself, the key fact was that the Declaration was not signed. Many reasons have been given for what occurred. Some of the paragraphs of the draft were so ideologically contentious that many heads refused to sign it. From the government’s perspective, this was a major disaster since the Prime Minister went to great length to ensure that all heads signed to make it evident to all and sundry that the Port of Spain Declaration was the herald of a new ’dawn’ in the affairs of the hemisphere.

This was to be seen by all as the by-product of Mr Manning’s diplomacy. Failure to sign instead signalled that there was in fact no consensus, even though all states had indicated just two weeks earlier in Washington that they would sign the Declaration.

We are now being told that Morales was the ’spoiler’, and that there were differences of opinion about th e use of biofuels, crime, immigration to the United States, how the decisions of the G20 summit would impact on the economies of OAS states, and most importantly, about the question of Cuba’s re-entry into the Latin American family.

Failure to agree stemmed from many things, but the most significant was that there were differences of ideological perspectives between those who hued to the capitalist\neoliberal economic paradigm, now in disgrace, and the socialist (ALBA) grouping led by Chavez and Morales. The latter two came to the meeting intending to dynamite the so-called Port of Spain Consensus.

Barack Obama’s clever accomodationist postures served to derail this agenda. It presented an opportunity for him to interact with the leaders of the region and to formally announce new ’doctrines’ that would apply to his interface with the Caribbean and Latin America. Obama succeeded in erasing (at least for now) the image of the ’ugly Gringo’ which had been indelibly tattooed on the hemispheric landscape.

His new message was that American hegemony was being displaced by a partnership in which all states were sovereign and equal, or at least formally so. Obama’s clever performance generated a ’good feeling’ mood which served to disarm the radicals. All the anticipated fears about conflict and confrontation failed to materialise. Instead, we had smiles, handshakes and backslapping. This was a big achievement, and much of it was due to Obama’s cool non-macho political style. Mr Manning’s calming inputs also appear to have helped to create the mood.

This brings us to the Cuba issue. There was widespread support for Cuba’s attempt to re-enter the Inter-American family. So anxious was Raul to reboard the train that he publicly indicated willingness to discuss ’everything’, including press freedom, human rights, religious freedom and the release of political prisoners.

This was a major shift of position which had encouraged Obama to reciprocate. Hardliners in Cuba, including Fidel Castro, however, now tell us that Raul Castro either ’misspoke’ or that his position was ’misunderstood’ by Obama; we are now being told that there was in fact no such promise which has led hardline elements in the USA to say: ’We told you so.’

The reactions of those in the USA who accused Obama of appeasing dictators and the enemies of America made it clear that the resolution of the battle for the soul of Cuba would be long and hard, notwithstanding what took place inside the summit bubble.

Notwithstanding what Mr Manning and some of his colleagues have said about wanting Cuba to be re-admitted to the fold, one has to be reminded that the Organisation of American States has democracy clauses in several of its constitutive documents, including the Inter American Democratic Charter, which was agreed to, in principle, by the heads of Government of the hemisphere at the Quebec Summit in April 2001 and endorsed by them in September 2001 in Peru.

The Quebec Summit’s ’democracy clause’ provided that ’any unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order in a state of the hemisphere constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the participation of that state’s government in the Summits of the Americas process’.

The Inter American Charter also envisaged that threats to democracy in the region should be anticipated, prevented, and firmly rebuffed if they took place. The Charter likewise provided, inter alia, that the ’peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy, and that their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it before and after such disruptions’.

The Charter also required states to extend democratic conditionality not only to membership in the OAS as an organisation, but also to their bilateral relations. This means that OAS member states were expected to suspend bilateral relations with Cuba or any other ’illegitimate’ government.

The Charter was, however, unclear as to how states should react to a regime that fell foul of the expectations of the Charter which was a political and not a legally binding document. What exactly constituted democracy or ’an unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order?’

Will Cuba allow OAS fact-finding visits to be made to determine whether Cubans want competitive electoral democracy as the Charter provides? It is unlikely that there will be competitive elections in Cuba while the Castros are in power. It is likewise unlikely that the US would agree to have Cuba re-admitted to the OAS if it refuses to commit to free and fair elections. We seem to be facing a chilly stalemate.

Incidentally, what position will Trinidad and the Commonwealth Caribbean take in November in respect of Mr Mugabe and Zimbabwe? Will we call for an end to the embargoes and boycotts that have been imposed on Zimbabwe by Western Governments and multi-lateral lending agencies? Will we call for a restoration of Zimbabwe’s membership in the Commonwealth?

We note that the African Union also has a democracy clause. What critical differences exist between the two situations, or are the choices made entirely on subjective or ideological grounds?

We will consider these issues in future columns.