After a year of complicated and tough negotiations, world leaders will meet in the Danish capital, Copenhagen for a 12-day summit beginning tomorrow to try to reach an agreement on the fundamental issues that will form the substance of a legally binding international agreement.

Despite the camaraderie displayed in Port of Spain over a week ago during the climate change discussions by Commonwealth leaders who were joined by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke  Rasmussen, no one should be under an illusion that it will be easy sailing in Copenhagen.

Far from it, according to signals already coming from many developed nations.

World leaders are facing three core issues: They need to resolve ambitious mitigation targets in the developed countries; how to consider mitigation actions in developing countries and the issue of financing.

Reaching agreement in Copenhagen is important. According to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, mankind has already added enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to raise temperatures to a dangerous level and this is already leading to increased incidences of drought, heat waves and heavy storms.

The purpose of an ambitious and effective international climate change deal is to avoid catastrophic climate change and to help the most vulnerable countries adapt. The world has only a very narrow window of opportunity to undertake a first dramatic shift towards a low carbon society and to prevent the worst scenarios of scientists from coming true.

Scientists report that the global average temperature of the planet in the past century has risen by about 0.7 degrees Celsius. They attribute some 90 per cent to human activities that emit greenhouse gases, such as power generation, deforestation, transport, agriculture and industry.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that impacts are already being felt and further changes could be abrupt or irreversible’. They suggest global greenhouse gas emissions must decline rapidly if we are to avoid a dangerous increase in temperature.

In Port of Spain, Secretary-General Ban warned against the costs of failing in Copenhagen.

Failure to seal a deal could result in increased human suffering, higher economic losses, opportunities squandered in terms of productivity, global competitiveness and political stability.

In the Port of Spain Climate Change Consensus adopted at the conclusion of the Commonwealth meeting, the leaders defined climate change as the challenge of our time.”

The agreement in Copenhagen, they said, must address the urgent needs of developing countries by providing financing, support for adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building, as well as approaches and incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation from developing countries (REDD), and for afforestation and sustainable management of forests.

Commonwealth leaders also supported the establishment of a Copenhagen Launch Fund for developing countries to start in 2010 and build to US$10 billion a year by 2012, as proposed by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Sarkozy.

The Commonwealth called for immediate, fast disbursing assistance of at least 10% of the fund with a dedicated stream for small island States and associated low-lying coastal States of the Alliance of Small Island States and for a specified and comparable funding stream for the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

At least for this latter commitment, the Commonwealth meeting would have achieved substantially for island states already reeling from the impact of climate change.

For countries such as the Maldives, the lowest-lying nation on Earth, climate change is threatening to wipe out the chain of islands and submerge it beneath the sea.

To dramatically illustrate the devastating impact on the islands, Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed  and members of his government outfitted with oxygen tanks and snorkels last month held an underwater Cabinet meeting.

Underwater, members of the Cabinet signed a document calling on all countries to cut down their carbon emissions ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Several weeks ago, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat unveiled a campaign to promote the region’s collective position on climate change: 1.5 C to Stay Alive, which is intended to support and dramatize a common regional approach for mitigating the effects of climate change.

According to World Bank estimates, the total annual impact of potential climate change on all CARICOM countries is approximated at US$ 9.9 billion a year or around 11.3% of total annual GDP of all CARICOM member states and associate members.

But whether a deal is struck or not in Copenhagen, each one of us – governments, business, communities and individuals will have to accept personal responsibility to reduce impact on the environment.

Balancing economic fundamentals and environmental concerns is a major challenge facing countries worldwide including the Caribbean, a largely natural resource-based region, highly vulnerable to the pressures of trade of goods and services.

For the business sector, climate change presents a significant opportunity to transform their products and services, help shape public opinion and influence policy makers.

Business, in fact, is increasingly recognized as pivotal in helping to shape the quality and type of communities in which we live.

It is also facing greater demands to play an even broader role where their corporate strategy and behaviour can lead to positive impact on society, communities and on the environment.

For instance, dealing positively with environmental challenges such as pollution, resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, damage to ecosystems, harmful emissions and climate change can redefine the relationships between business and society.

An external environmental challenge that businesses will eventually face, if they haven’t started already, is the stringent policies that are being put in place by some of our key markets as more weight is given to environmental considerations in trade.

More countries worldwide are also recognising the increasing importance of environmental integrity as a source of competitive advantage and as a driver of economic development, both in terms of new business opportunities and as a spur to innovation throughout the economy.

There are welcoming signs that businesses in the Caribbean are engaging in the climate change debate in the context of their own operation and in the country and region where they operate.

It was heartening to hear Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BP Trinidad and Tobago, Robert Riley saying that despite Trinidad and Tobago being a producer of oil and gas and a major energy consumer, the country should rethink its energy policy from both the supply and consumption sides and consider the role it can play in more efficient energy utilization, and the development and introduction of renewable energy.

He also supports the introduction of a regional policy that deals with energy efficiency and diversifying the energy mix of hydrocarbons and alternative energy wind and solar.

Jeffrey Mack, Chief Executive Officer, Guardian Holdings Group, noting the impact of climate change on the insurance industry said insurers must seek to capitalize on opportunities to invest in sustainability for the future.

In the Caribbean, vehicles and vehicular accident claims make up a substantial percentage of pay-outs. This sector is one that contributes directly to carbon emissions and subsequently climate change.

This, for instance, gives the insurance industry a window of potential to work with Caribbean governments to research and develop greener alternatives for consumers, according to Mr. Mack.

The insurance sector also has an important role to play in promoting the awareness of climate change.

As risk management experts, the industry has a responsibility to identify new opportunities and responses to address the effects of climate change, according to him.

Ultimately, the insurance industry will be expected to not just comply with resolutions established by COP 15. As members of the global community we need to focus our lenses to lead the implementation of the new treaty, he said.

Indeed what is required by all stakeholders in the climate change debate in Copenhagen is the political will to take concrete, decisive action.

People have a right to protect themselves, their family and their values and this may have been the thinking behind the 41,800 persons who applied for gun licences over the past eight years in Trinidad and Tobago, now a major crime hot spot in the Caribbean.
Some 215 people were granted firearm users licences from a total of 4,220 applicants received so far this year and out this, 144 were non nationals probably working in embassies and in the energy sector.
Last year 7,957 people applied for gun licences, the highest number of applications for the eight-year period.
The high number of applications for gun licences clearly reflect the level of insecurity and fear among citizens and non-national of becoming yet another statistic – and a high probability of another case of unsolved murder.
The twin-island state has a 21 percent detection rate for murders compared to 16 percent last year.
In Trinidad and Tobago, some 75 per cent of murders are committed with illegal firearms which mainly come through South America, according to law enforcement officials.
Last year, homicides reached a record high of 550 while the 2009 figures are slowly inching its way towards that number although National Security Minister Martin Joseph gave a personal assurance in the Parliament recently that the country’s soaring murder rate will not surpass last year’s rate.
Up to May this year, Trinidad police seized 130 illegal firearms and 700 rounds of ammunition. Last year, a total of 460 illegal firearms were taken off the streets.
Jamaica, where on average 1,000 people are murdered annually is also rocked by a high incidence of gun-related crime and violence – far surpassing Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean as a whole.
Guyana also has its share of gun crime – with some criminals being the owners of sophisticated weaponry than what the police possess.
Who could forget the pictures of the murdered victims of Lusignan where 11 persons including five children who were sprayed with gun fire and in Bartica where a dozen people were killed, both horrible incidents taking place last year.
Small islands in the Eastern Caribbean can no longer boast of being without their share of criminal elements.
In St Lucia, government earlier this year ordered police to take back the streets after six persons were murdered and a threat from criminals to assassinate law enforcement officials.
Crime and violence in the Caribbean is documented internationally.
The 2007 World Bank and the UN Office report on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) notes that murder rates in the Caribbean at 30 per 100,000 population annually are higher than any other region of the world.
The proliferation of illegal small arms threatens the ability of states to meet their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the ?high rates of crime and violence in the Caribbean are undermining growth, threatening human welfare, and impeding social development.?
The documents also links the upsurge of illegal guns to the trafficking of illegal drugs which are transshipped through the Caribbean.
Gun ownership is an outgrowth of the drug trade and, in some countries, of politics and associated garrison communities, it commented.
Ambassador Camillo Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines told the recent UN General Assembly that the  Caribbean which produces “not one single firearm and one single kilo of cocaine, is awash in drugs and guns, and is now the sub-region with the world?s highest per capita murder rate.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning who has lead responsibility for national security in CARICOM also spoke at the Assembly about the illegal drug transshipment trade which has been fueling trafficking in small arms and light weapons, with troubling consequences.
Although the Caribbean has been pooling its resources in the fight – and there is now unprecedented cooperation among the legal and security systems of countries, he urged more resources to battle this menace and encouraged states which have not been supportive of the initiative to negotiate a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty to join and ensure that it becomes a reality.
At a June conference in St Kitts and Nevis on youth, crime and violence, CARICOM Secretary General, Edwin Carrington called on governments to make all efforts to avoid the proliferation of guns.
Noting that the murders of young men were taking place at an alarming rate, he said it may be necessary to revisit the 100 or so recommendations of the Task Force on Crime and Security to glean if any of the recommendations could be applied to this increasingly untenable situation.
Last year, the Canadian based Project Ploughshares and its partner organization, the Women?s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) based in Trinidad and Tobago, hosted a workshop in Port of Spain to explore regional approaches by Caribbean governments and civil society to small arms-related violence.
The working group reports suggested elements for a Caribbean response to small arms proliferation and misuse which include thorough and transparent data acquisition at all points along the small arms chain;  policy-oriented research and analysis of causes and costs of gun violence;  harmonized small arms control standards across the region; collaboration among states and sectors, and especially with civil society; attention to pertinent issues such as ammunition, gender, and ethnicity; and use of CARICOM structures and frameworks.
According to the workshop, CARICOM Member states have regional and multilateral small arms commitments.
For example, CARICOM states are politically bound by the UN Programme of Action (PoA)
However, since 2001, only a third of CARICOM members have provided a national report on implementation of the PoA to the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, and only Trinidad and Tobago has provided more than one report.
The 2004 report by Trinidad and Tobago describes ?regional efforts geared towards reducing crime? through two mechanisms: the CARICOM Task force and the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The CARICOM Task force on Crime and Security report contains 113 recommendations on research, collaboration between government and civil society, strategic interventions based on training and capacity-building, and a financing strategy for sustained funding.
In 1997, the OAS adopted the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing Of and Trafficking In Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA). 
Consequently, to begin to reverse the proliferation and misuse of small arms in the region, the workshop said an important step for CARICOM states is to effectively implement existing agreements.
More countries in the Caribbean are also signing agreements to combat arms trafficking with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of the US Justice Department to provide access and utilisation of e-Trace services which assist in the identification of firearms trafficking patterns and geographic profiling for criminal hot spots and possible sources of illicit firearms.
Could we then conclude with all these law enforcement collaboration, measures, treaties and recommendations, that in the coming years the Caribbean will begin to see some reduction in gun violence in the coming years?
Dare we hope?

World leaders including those in the Caribbean are preparing for Copenhagen in December to reach consensus on a new global climate change agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which will set targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
This will require the political will of all countries, particularly the industrialized nations to adopt and implement ambitious plans for reducing greenhouse emissions, which are the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere for a long period, leading to a gradual warming of the earth’s surface.
Before meeting in the Danish capital, leaders will assemble next week at the United Nations in New York to address the issue of global climate change, described as the greatest threat facing humankind today.
The Caribbean plans to be well represented at the New York meeting and in Copenhagen as the adverse impact of climate change has already begun manifesting itself on sectors of the economy and on our natural habitat.
Even though the Caribbean and other Small Island Developing Nations (SIDS) are low emitters of greenhouse gases, they are the areas that face the greatest risk of climate change impact, according to scientists.
Based on current realities and some horrific future modelling of climate change impact, Caribbean countries are pressing world leaders in Copenhagen to agree on reduction targets.
These include long-term stabilisation of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at levels which will ensure that global average surface temperature increases be limited to well below 1.5? C of pre-industrial levels; that global greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2015; that global Co2 reductions of at least 45 percent by 2020 and greenhouse gas emissions be cut by more than 95 per cent of 1990 CO2 levels by 2050.
The World Bank estimates that annual economic damage from climate change in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries will be around US$11 billion by 2080, or 11 percent of the grouping’s gross domestic product.
Nearly a fifth of the losses is likely to be linked to the specific effects of sea-level rise – loss of land, and damage to tourism infrastructure, housing, buildings and other infrastructure.
The loss of tourism expenditure – the lifeblood of the vast majority of island states – is projected at US$4 billion, and climate change-related disasters such as hurricanes and floods at US$5 billion.
Based on this possible scenario for the Caribbean and those of us who live here, it is vital that our leaders are resolute in their position at the December high level conference and not allow the industrialized nations to shirk their collective responsibility to planet Earth.
It is heartening, though that leaders of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), collectively responsible for more than 75% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions agreed at their recent meeting in L’Aquila, Italy that the increase in the global average temperature should not exceed pre-industrial levels by more than two degrees Celsius – although their general commitments fell short of what was required by science.
According to Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the outcome of the meeting was a bit of a dichotomy as the leaders of the largest emitters had agreed to a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% up to 2050 and that the temperature increase should be limited to 2? C.
However, they did not take into account the IPCC?s recommendation that in order to achieve the 2? C goal, emissions should peak by 2015.
Given the urgency of establishing consensus, Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas who was invited by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to address next week’s UN Conference called on all small states to stand together to confront the issues that have the potential to damage its ecosystems, limit land based agricultural production and significantly deplete marine resources and fishing stock.
Prior to attending the UN Conference and a meeting of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), chaired by Grenada, Mr. Thomas said the situation facing small island states is a matter of survival, given the impact of sea level rise and temperature increases.
Grenada, incidentally hosted the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on the island in July for its 48th session.
Executive Board Chair Lex de Jonge noted that by holding the Board?s meeting on the island, some light was shed on the CDM in the region.
The CDM is one of the financial mechanisms established under the Kyoto Protocol and has the dual objectives of facilitating developed countries meeting their emission reduction targets whilst promoting sustainable development.
Since the first Board meeting in 2001, over 1,100 projects have been registered, with a  further 4,000 projects in the CDM pipeline.  The English-speaking Caribbean, however, has only one CDM registered project – unlike Brazil, China and India where the vast majority of the projects are concentrated.
It is anticipated that the CDM will generate over 2.7 billion certified emission reductions (CERs), equivalent to the removal of 2.7 billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of the first commitment period in 2012.
In 2007, the primary and secondary markets for CERs were worth US$13 billion. Currently 2% of the proceeds of the CDM are used to finance the Adaptation Fund.
Whatever the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, our countries must continue to embark on sustainable development and environmental protection initiatives.
Guyana, for instance recently unveiled a draft Low-Carbon Development Strategy which ambitiously sets out a pathway to a new economy which builds future prosperity that is low-deforestation, low-carbon and climate resilient.
Set within the country’s response to climate change, the strategy is broadly hinged on Guyana deploying its vast forests to mitigate global climate change.
The key focus areas of the strategy are investments in low carbon economic infrastructure, investments in high potential low carbon sectors, expanding access to services and new economic opportunities for indigenous and forest communities and transforming the village economy as well as improving social services and economic opportunities for the wider Guyanese population and investments in climate change adaptation infrastructure.
Island nations in the Caribbean should  also not see their size or the fact that they are small emitters of greenhouse gases to not consider a broad strategy for  sustainable development and have this issue on their political agenda.
The Maldives, a chain of low-lying islets in the Indian Ocean threatened by sea level rise, is aiming to become the first carbon-neutral nation by fully switching to the use of renewable energy within a decade.
The plan includes more than 150 wind turbines, hundreds of thousands of square meters of rooftop solar panels and a power plant burning coconut husks. Batteries would provide power when energy from the wind and sun were unavailable. Fossil-fuel-powered vehicles and boats would be replaced over time by electric models.
Discussions on climate change have also opened up another raging debate on whether an economic cost should be imposed on imported products from countries that don’t curb their emissions.
In an OP-ED last week, Alicia BᲣena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said there is already strong evidence of how new ?climatic-economic? standards tend to include unilateral trade regulations based on the carbon footprint of traded goods and services.
In June, the United States House of Representatives approved the ?Clean Energy and Security Act?, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% in 2020 with regard to 2005.
To protect the U.S. economy, according to Ms. BᲣena,  this law -which is still pending approval in the Senate- establishes compensatory tariffs on carbon-intensive goods, such as steel, cement, paper and glass, imported from countries the United States considers are not doing enough to reduce their emissions.
In France, the information on the carbon footprint of products and their packaging, as well as their consumption or potential environmental impact, will be mandatory as of January 1, 2011.
In October 2008, the United Kingdom created the ?Publicly Available Standard? to estimate greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) associated to the life cycle of products and services, and drafted the Code of Good Practices for the emission and reduction of GGE.
Ms. BᲣena said these unilateral measures could mean that the efforts and responsibility for mitigating the effects of climate change may shift from north to south, and could turn into a new obstacle to the economic growth of developing countries.
Although awareness about the trade relevance of the carbon footprint is just now emerging, the ECLAC official said the region should take it very seriously in designing its public policies and long-term economic planning.
If addressed in a timely and comprehensive manner, climate change may become a window of opportunity to begin de-carbonizing the energy matrix, renew infrastructure, improve productive processes and gradually move towards a development model with less carbon content.
Some advice well worth pondering on.

It might be a good time for Caribbean countries, occupied with mitigating the consequences of the global financial crisis on their economies, to also devote some time to look at how they can put their economies in better shape to withstand any future shocks to the global financial system.
Globalization and the interwoven nature of the world economy has shown its down side where stresses in one of the major economies or in a region can create a destructive ripple effect, leaving financial carnage in its wake.
The Caribbean has been dealt a severe blow by the global crisis which began in the United States and which has presented significant economic and social development challenges for our small countries.
Weak global demand for commodities and falling prices have led to lower export and tax revenues for many of our countries while those heavily dependent on services such as tourism have seen a significant dwindling of foreign exchange.
Expenditure plans by governments have had to be shelved or reduced as the budget deficit continues to widen while more people have been thrown on the bread line.
Trinidad and Tobago’s energy-based economy, perhaps the richest in the Caribbean and most diversified with a large domestic manufacturing sector is facing its first decline in GDP in 16 years and possibly zero growth by the end of 2009.
Several Caribbean countries including St. Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis have had to seek funds from the IMF under the rapid-access component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility (ESF) for some much needed resources.
Grenada, still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 that devastated their economy has requested a continuation of a poverty reduction scheme while Jamaica, one of the hardest hit countries of the two-year crisis resumed a borrowing relationship with the IMF.
Jamaica’s re-engagement with the IMF allows the country to access US$300 million of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and up to US$1.2 billion in standby loans.
Antigua and Barbuda, also reeling from a double whammy – the impact of the collapse of the business empire built by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, now facing fraud charges in the US and decline in the tourism sector -  has received a desperately-needed US$50 million from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) to help pay back wages of public employees, a month after joining the organisation.
Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Sir Dwight Venner painted a dismal  picture of the economic outlook for the nine-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
Projected decline in tourism and construction is estimated over 14 per cent in 2009 and slightly lower in 2010. The current revenue of the governments is projected to fall by approximately 12.9 per cent in 2009.
Travel receipts fell by 2.5 per cent (US$29.7 million) in 2008, compared to a three per cent increase in 2007. Foreign direct investment decreased by 29.1 per cent to US$851 million consistent with the slow-down in direct investment-related construction activity in some member countries.
By contrast, an increase of 14.6 per cent was recorded in FDI inflows for 2007. These inflows have accounted for, on average 27.5 per cent and 22.5 per cent of GDP respectively from 2005 – 2008.
Barbados, also affected by a decline in tourism, last month secured US$120 million to boost its foreign reserves and help finance its capital works programme.
The money was raised by Scotiatrust & Merchant Bank Trinidad and Tobago Limited, from a cross-section of investors in the wider Caribbean region.
Barbados is also planning to draw down special funds from the IMF.
Guyana which in 2008 achieved their third consecutive year of positive growth now sees its economy threatened by an external environment that has resulted in critical foreign direct investment projects being delayed, lingering adverse price conditions for some key exports such as bauxite, and the onset of trade conditions that might more likely retard, rather than promote growth.
While the attention is naturally focused on recovery and stability, it would also be wise if  economists and finance planners could also come up with policies that can help countries be better prepared to face any future global crises.
The OECS also seems to be on the right track with this as it plans to implement an eight point programme which includes fiscal reform and debt management.
Edwin M. Truman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in a recent speech during a conference in Guatemala remarked that being better prepared has two broad consequences.
First, a country will be better off in the face of a global crisis if its own vulnerability is limited, for example, if its fiscal affairs are reasonably stable, if its inflation rate is low, its internal and external debt position is sustainable, and if its exchange rate is flexible.
Second, a country will be better off, if it has preserved the room to maneuver to respond to external shocks through the use of domestic policy instruments, primarily fiscal and monetary policies.
Countries should self-insure against future crises by putting in place as best as they can robust economic and financial policy frameworks.
One approach, he suggested is countries build up a war chest of  foreign exchange reserves as a buffer against future financial winds, although there is a danger in officials having a  false sense of security while potentially distorting the functioning of the global economy and financial system.
This rings true for Trinidad and Tobago when government officials boasted about their stock of foreign reserves which stands at US$8.5 billion, providing the country with more than eleven full months of import cover of goods and services and the US$2.8 billion Heritage and Stablisation Fund (HSF) reserves and assuring the population that the country would not be affected by the global crisis.
Closer home, in a 1998 address to the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks in Georgetown, CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington against the backdrop of the Asian financial crisis called on member states to accelerate the process of improving the competitiveness and diversification of their production and exports, strengthening their domestic financial systems and increasing their reliance on domestic savings and the regional financial market as sources of investment capital for regional investment and development.
That advice still holds for today’s situation. 

On the 19th anniversary of the coup attempt in Trinidad last Monday, Prime Minister Patrick Manning dropped a bombshell: that he was to be assassinated by an organisation last year.

He linked an incident involving a police constable and his security detail in July 2008 to the assassination plot which the prime minister said did not end in bloodshed only because he did not earlier report it to the police.

The constable, Clinton Auguste was dismissed from the police service earlier this year by a tribunal for disorderly conduct when he became belligerent with members of the prime minister’s security detail, whom he accused of reckless driving.

It was the third such time that Prime Minister Manning has cried out about an attempt on his life.

Four years ago, again on the anniversary of the coup attempt, he claimed his life was under threat, requiring an increase in his security.

In November 2003, Manning who is head of the National Security Committee of Parliament and also the quasi leader on national security issues in the Caribbean Community made a similar statement.

I find it quite alarming that death threats – real or imagined – can be made on the head of a government and proper investigations have not taken place to bring the would be perpetrators to justice or even to determine whether the claims are baseless.

As far as I know, there has been no probe by the police into Mr. Manning’s two claims that someone wants him dead.

It is hoped that the police will launch a full investigation into the latest claim of an assassination by the prime minister which he disclosed at a political meeting.

A police investigation is seriously needed to uncover the organisation that Mr. Manning referred to; who was the person who walked off the street and into the office of the Minister of Local Government, Hazel Manning who is his wife to report the threat against her husband; what was said and why was the person allowed to leave; the reasons for it not being reported to the police and even more baffling, why, with this information of a death threat, would Mr. Manning leave the security of his well guarded vehicle and seek to confront police constable Auguste, about whether he knew who he (Mr. Manning) was.

Too many questions and very little answers on this serious issue as Mr. Manning has refused to further comment on it when approached by the media.

It’s the same nonchalance over another serious issue that the country has been witnessing over the last 19 years as calls for an inquiry into the 1990 coup attempt involving 114 members of Jamaat al Muslimeem continue to be ignored by the political directorate.

There have been some suggestions that Mr. Manning’s claim of a death threat against his life on the 19th anniversary was a red herring to divert attention from the growing clamor for an government-appointed commission of inquiry to take place into the coup d’etat.

Imagine, a large gang of armed thugs violently invading a sitting of parliament, capturing hostages including the prime minister, ministers and opposition members.

At another venue, armed rebels take over a television station, turning journalists and other workers into their hostages.

For six long days, the entire country is under siege. Buildings burn to the ground, stores are looted, millions are lost – and two dozen

people including a sitting parliamentarian are left dead.

Two of the current political players, Mr Manning and Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday were absent from the House of Representatives on July 27, 1990 when the chamber was invaded.

Governments under Mr. Manning and Mr. Panday have out-rightly refused to hold any inquiry into the events surrounding the insurgency. For them, it’s a case of let sleeping dogs lie.

These two political leaders have also courted the Jamaat al Muslimeen and its leader Yasin Abu Bakr during their campaigning for general elections.

Bakr who was freed along with former insurrectionists after a high court upheld an amnesty which they received during the coup attempt has boasted openly that because of his help and depending on whose side he was on, that the UNC and the PNM were able to win their

elections.

The high court ruling upholding the amnesty, incidentally, was quashed by the Privy Council, which ruled that it was given under duress.

When calls for an inquiry were repeated last year, Mr. Manning said people’s memories would have faded, citing it as yet another reason why there shouldn’t be one.

Over the last two weeks, a radio station ran a series of interviews involving former hostages and military officials about the coup attempt, clearly reflecting that people’s memory are very much intact as they related detail by detail.

Every year when the 1990 coup attempt anniversary rolls around, I always remember how close I was to being killed when the gunmen stormed the Parliament Chamber with their guns blazing.

Journalists, members of the public, parliamentarians and parliament workers scampered for safety, fleeing along the corridor for escape.

I never made it outside that day. I ran and ran until there was no where to run and hid under a desk with two other persons.

The next morning we were caught by the gun-toting Muslimeen soldiers and taken to the Chamber where I saw the now ex-prime minister ANR Robinson, ministers and parliamentarians with their feet and hands tied.

There were also heaps of arms and ammunition on the ground around the Chamber which was heavily guarded by armed rebels.

Several hours later, I was released and along with Winston Dookeran, who was then appointed interim prime minister, Mediator Father Knolly Clarke, wounded government parliamentarian Leo des Vignes who later died and the two other persons found with me, we made out way out the Parliament, our hands up in the air in surrender, as guns – from the army, police and Muslimeen were trained on us.

I don’t know the real reasons why both the Panday and Manning administrations have denied the country a Commission of Inquiry into the 1990 insurrection but I do know that whatever arguments they have put forward are very unconvincing and their denial for it only adds to

suspicion that people have about them and their motives.

It was pitiful sight last Monday to see the ailing ANR Robinson, who has lost most of his sight and can only walk with the assistance of another person, also making his call to the authorities for an inquiry into the coup attempt.

It came from his voice, now feeble – a far comparison to the voice of conviction when he ignored demands to order the army and police to stop shooting and instead bravely called on them to “attack with full force” which earned him a beating on his head and a gun shot to his leg.

Next year makes it 20 years since the coup attempt. It’s still not too late for a probe into it.

 

 

 

I really can’t say I was impressed with a lot of what took place at last week’s heads of government conference in Georgetown. In fact, I was mildly surprised that given the sort of urgency that was placed on the Summit – although this state of urgency mainly came from regional commentators – that there would have been more introspection on the governance of the community.
I was pleased though that many of the speakers referred to the issue of climate change and the need to be actively involved in the debate leading up to Copenhagen in December to seek agreement on a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions reductions, whose first commitment period ends in 2012.
Small countries such as ours, which emit a negligible amount of greenhouse gases, need to keep the pressure on the chief polluters in the industrialized countries to reduce impact on the environment.
Last week, leaders of the G8 industrial nations agreed to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, but critics have said that the big cuts are needed sooner rather than later.
Earlier this year, we saw the G20 group attended by major world economies reduce the critically important issue of low carbon economy and the climate change negotiations to two paragraphs in their communique with no specific commitments.
As one of the regions facing the greatest impact of climate change, we need to be on our guard at all times and ensure that continuous pressure is brought to bear on the large economies of the world and ensure that they not only accept responsibility as the major polluters – but that they commit themselves in a serious way towards reducing greenhouses gases, blamed for the planet’s warmer atmosphere.
Global warming has also been blamed for increasing the temperature on the top layer in the ocean, causing the average hurricane to become a lot more stronger.
We’re currently in the hurricane season and so far, it has been quiet but no yet knows how many of the named storms will become hurricanes or how devastating they will be.
The 2008 hurricane season, which had 16 named storms has gone into the history books as the fourth most costly on record. There were eight hurricanes: two Category 1 (Hanna, Kyle), one Category 2 (Dolly), two Category 3 (Bertha, Omar), and three Category 4 (Gustav, Ike, Paloma). 
Combined, these storms produced over an estimated US$11 billion in insured losses.
According to Climate Change Declaration at the end of the CARICOM meeting,  the total annual impact of potential climate change on all CARICOM countries is estimated at US$9.9 billion in the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007 or about 11.3% of the total annual GDP of all 20 CARICOM countries, according to the World Bank.
The Caribbean leaders said they are gravely concerned that efforts to promote sustainable development and achieve internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are under severe threat from the devastating effects of climate change and sea level rise.
This has led to increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, damage to bio diversity, coral bleaching, coastal erosion and changing precipitation patterns.
They noted that dangerous climate change is already occurring in all Small Islands and Low-lying Coastal Developing States (SIDS) regions including the Caribbean.
They feared that many SIDS will cease to exist without urgent, ambitious and decisive action by the international community to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions significantly and to support SIDS in their efforts to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, including through the provision of increased levels of financial and technical resources.
Given these daunting realities, it was reassuring to hear other leaders speak on it – apart from Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo who has been waving the red flag for some time – and adding their voice to the debate on the  United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to shape the international agreements by the end of the year.
As the Guyana leader, host of the meeting urged, countries must vociferously advocate an ambitious climate change agreement in Copenhagen that puts the region on a sustainable pathway to achieve a concentration of greenhouse gases that will not cause major shifts in global temperatures and catastrophic consequences particularly for islands and low-lying states.
The agreement, he said, must provide mechanisms to generate sufficient funds for adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer. Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, inclusive of avoided deforestation, must be a prominent part of the agreement.
This, according to Jagdeo will be important for Suriname, Belize, and Guyana.
It must be noted that Guyana last month launched an ambitious low carbon development strategy that sets out a pathway to a new economy which the president says will build future prosperity that is low-deforestation, low-carbon and climate resilient.
The key focus areas of the strategy will be investments in low carbon economic infrastructure; investments in high-potential low-carbon sectors; expanding access to services and new economic opportunities for indigenous and forest communities.
It is also aimed at transforming the village economy as well as improving social services and economic opportunities for the wider Guyanese population and investments in climate change adaptation infrastructure.
At the opening of the CARICOM conference, Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas said the new global climate change regime would be important for small states such as those in the Caribbean Community, as decisions taken on emission reductions will directly influence the amount of damage to the environment and other problems caused by climate change.
He called on leaders to study the proposals for adoption in Copenhagen and ensure that the most beneficial results are obtained for the region.
Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Baldwin Spencer declared that any failure or delay to secure a consensus for action on climate change will present significant challenges in terms of the human, infrastructural and financial impacts on countries.
For CARICOM, securing urgent, effective and equitable action on climate change that is robust and dynamic is the overriding global policy challenge, according to Spencer.
He described the impact of climate change as overwhelmingly severe to the region and which has started to threaten development milestones achieved over a number of years. This will continue to exert significant pressure on existing island-nation vulnerabilities that have the real potential to worsen socio-economic condition.
He suggested that the Copenhagen agreement should, at a minimum include binding commitments aimed at halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; a doubling of public investments in low-carbon technology by 2015 and a significant boost in funding from both public and private sources to fight global warming.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message to the Caribbean leaders at their summit noted that climate change is also a serious threat to the economic and physical viability of Caribbean countries.
He called on Caribbean leaders to support a more integrated implementation of the Mauritius Strategy -  the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States – particularly in the context of next year?s mid-decade.
He also urged them to continue showing leadership in efforts to ?seal the deal? -  a global UN campaign which aims to galvanize political will and public support  in Copenhagen in December.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the lone petroleum producer in the Caribbean, the government is preparing a Draft Green Paper on Renewable Energy which would form the framework to guide the development and usage of renewable energy forms.
Energy Minister Conrad Enill said last week, as a hydrocarbon producing country, Trinidad and Tobago must address the thrust towards cleaner fuels and usage of alternative or renewable energy forms as well as methods for improving energy efficiency.
Its state-owned Petrotrin company has already taken the bold step to stop refining and marketing leaded gasoline and further steps are being undertaken to upgrade the refinery to produce cleaner fuels.
Commonwealth heads of government, meeting in Trinidad in November are also urged by their Ministers of Health to use the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to forge strong post-2012 International Climate Change arrangements that will support the smallest, poorest and most vulnerable regions and underpin effective mitigation and adaptation to reduce the potential health impacts of climate change on health and development.

Expect mass migration of desperate people to Trinidad and Tobago from the Eastern Caribbean countries looking for a better life. That was one of the dire warnings from Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister Patrick Manning of the consequences the country faces if it did not engage in an economic and political union with Eastern Caribbean countries.
Even more chilling was his next declaration that Port of Spain could “pay in blood” if it failed to enter into the union with the smaller island states.
Is he trying to scare the population into supporting his latest foray? – which by the way is not getting wholesale support if one can judge comments made by the numerous callers to a number of talk programmes on the radio stations in Trinidad.
Having heard about the proposed union back in August 2008, I must admit to feeling a bit disappointed that the major reasons came down to this – and I’m wondering whether Mr. Manning is not exaggerating his case a bit too extreme.
According to the proposal, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia are seeking to achieve economic integration by 2011 and political integration two years later.
All four countries belong to the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping which has set a 2015 deadline for the formation of a single economy.
The countries met in a mini-summit in Port of Spain in August 2008, which was also attended by the Foreign Ministers of Barbados and Guyana as observers.
Then, Mr. Manning flew off to five other CARICOM countries over a 36-hour whirlwind trip to sell his idea to the other leaders who included Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica, Hubert Ingraham of the Bahamas and Dean Barrow of Belize.
I have not had the privilege of getting a copy of the Vaughan Lewis report outlining the modalities for getting towards the ambitious time-lines of the proposed union. But prime minister Manning so far in his public utterances has not stated whether the arrangement will involve the full integration of goods, labour, a common currency, free movement or whether countries would have to give up some sovereignty and pooling it.
He hasn’t clarified either whether under the political union, that I can take up my bags and freely move into one of the islands or whether more Vinceys, Lucians and Grenadians will be able to migrate to the twin-island, just as easily.
Mid-last week, the prime minister came to the Parliament and announced several economic stimulus initiatives to bail out the struggling economies of the Eastern Caribbean.
These include the opening of an aircraft maintenance facility in Grenada, expanding a ship maintenance facility in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, labour intensive plastics industries in the eastern Caribbean from primary products of aluminum and polypropylene from Trinidad and investing in quarrying facilities in Dominica.
For Jamaica, he said government was ensuring that sending liquefied natural gas (LNG) into Jamaica was now a national priority of his country. And he also hoped to get alumina from Jamaica for the aluminium smelter plant, projected for construction later this year once it gets the necessary environmental clearance permit.
Sorry, Guyana, you were not included for any investment projects, even though you are struggling just as much as those eastern Caribbean islands.
Mr. Manning told the Parliament that he was very concerned about the economic conditions in the Caribbean – and pointed out that in terms of their debt, international agencies have put a limit on it to GDP ratios of 50 percent.
If it crosses 50 percent, there is cause for concern – and he detailed how badly countries were faring.
At the end of 2008, the debt to GDP ratio in St. Vincent and the Grenadines was 67 percent; in St. Lucia – 71 percent;  in Barbados, 95 percent, in Dominica, just under 100 percent and in Grenada, it was just over 100 percent. 
The debt to GDP ratio in Antigua and Barbuda is 120 percent; about 180 percent in St. Kitts and Nevis and Jamaica, it is about 130 percent.  In Trinidad and Tobago, the debt to GDP ratio was 27 percent at the end of last year.
He also highlighted the countries reserves position, normally measured by the cover for imports in months. 
The reserves of the Bahamas reflect import cover of 2 months; Belize of 2.8 months, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, 2.5 months, Guyana 2.5 months, Jamaica 2.3, Netherlands Antilles 2.9 and in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, it is 11.3 months of import cover. 
The poverty index in the Eastern Caribbean ranges between 20 and 37 percent while unemployment is between 15 and 25 percent. 
I’m all for economic cooperation between Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, our major export market for manufactured goods. At the same time, there continues to be strong sentiments in the twin-island that Mr.Manning ought to do much more to improve infrastructure and services in his own country before trying to help others.
It may also not be the most appropriate time for talking about investing in other countries when government revenues have been significantly reduced because of the global financial crisis.
Suspicious minds including my own, however see him trying to use the petro-dollars to wield and extend influence in the Caribbean, given Venezuela’s growing dominant role in the region through the Petrocaribe initiative.
Mr. Manning’s announcement of initiatives for Caribbean countries also came shortly after a summit of leaders of the 18-nation Petrocaribe organization in St Kitts and Nevis earlier this month.
There was glowing praise from the Caribbean for the four year old Petrocaribe. Mr. Golding described it as a model of cooperation within the region and among developing countries, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said it is rooted in a new paradigm of South-South partnerships while St Kitts and Nevis leader, Dr. Denzil Douglas saw it as one of the most progressive agreements made in theWestern Hemisphere.
Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez also promised to strengthen the alliance that allows the nations to purchase Venezuelan oil on better terms.
The leaders at that meeting heard how the Petrocaribe initiative had developed important energy projects and boosting the socio-economic development of member countries.
Between 2007- 2009, 14 countries have activated the crude and oil product supply mechanism and reported an increase of the volumes shipped from 59 thousand barrels daily to 121 thousand barrels daily, equal to a 105% increase over the period.
There has also been investments in infrastructure projects to facilitate the development of fuel distribution systems in member countries, such as Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and Nicaragua, reaching a potential distribution capacity of 727 thousand barrels. 
An additional 5 thousand barrel fuel storage tank is being built in the electric plant of St. Kitts and Nevis to increase the electric power generation capacity while St Vincent and the Grenadines now has an LPG bottle filling plants project with a capacity of 20 thousand gas bottles per month.
Petrocaribe’s Energy Security Treaty includes the expansion of the power distribution network through the construction, financing and expansion of power generation plants in Nicaragua, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Eight refining projects which will have a manufacturing capacity of around 580 thousand barrels per day, with an investment of about US$24 billion will be located in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Jamaica and Dominica.
A very impressive record from a four year old initiative, which has bumped off Trinidad and Tobago’s state-owned Petrotrin as the region’s dominant petroleum supplier.
But coming back to Mr. Manning’s latest idea of an economic and political union with the Eastern Caribbean countries, I’d really like to hear much more – perhaps debate it in the Parliament – before I’m sold on it.
But right now, I’m not too convinced.

No one can ignore the spate of criticism that has been levelled at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in one way or the other within recent months.
We’ve seen some leaders using the most provocative language to express their disdain at the slowness and the backwardness of the community; governments using not-so-subtle threats against each other over issues that impact on their citizens while there continues to be widespread disenchantment with the apparent acute under-performance of the Georgetown-based Secretariat.
Instead of integrating and moving cohesively as one region, one voice in a highly competitive globalised world, things seem to be falling apart in the Community but the gate-keepers continue to ignore the wider implications as they are too engaged in their own issues.
Countries are fiercely protecting their own little piece of sovereignty, they are engaging in their own bilateral relations whether it is getting grants from donors or buying favours from the Taiwanese or even having big business provide quick money to them.
The leaders have met at least three times over the last six months. There was the March meeting of the Bureau in Belize; the Americas Summit in April in Trinidad and a month later, a special meeting in Trinidad to discuss the global economic impact on their countries.
Yet, there is perplexing silence on stemming the decline in the Community. It’s business as usual for them.
In their talks, there has been no conversation on their concerns about the state of the community; how to improve the image of the community; what are some of the fundamental policies and programmes that can be adopted and how can they engage the stakeholders – the ordinary people, who matter the most – in pointing the way forward for the community.
Next month, the leaders will meet for their annual Summit but in the midst of a major economic and financial crisis, it simply cannot be business as usual. There must be some thoughts on what the region wants to become; where it wants to go and what actions we have to take to get there.
Frankly, we’re tired of the noble sounding speeches – a lot of them though short on substance, the tired old cliche about regional integration and the vague and predictable communique that follows at the end of their talks. It’s the same-old, same-old, as the young people tend to say.
Have they wondered why few media houses even bother to report on them? Or why Caribbean issues are not part of the vibrant talk shows on radio or the television debate or even why ordinary members of the public are not even demanding the electronic media focus on CARICOM issues?
The leaders need to get real with the times – our populations demand no less.
They need to start somewhere. For example, the Vision for a Single Economy put forward by Girvan & his team was only a sketch and needs to be expanded in light of the current crisis and the flagship Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) has to be put on fast forward.
An innovative and ambitious strategy or a Road Map must be developed with specific targets in such areas as ‘rights of establishment across national boundaries.’
For the wider Caribbean, the negotiations with the Dominican Republic must be brought forward for rapid attention and this should also be seen as a stepping stone for Cuba to be embraced in an enlarged “Caribbean Community of Independent Nations.” 
This could then lead to a Caribbean-wide functional cooperation programme by a S&T Research and Innovation Consortium to deal with health, medical sciences and nutrition, building on the George Alleyne’s Caribbean Commission on Health & Development report.
The S&T Research Consortium is an idea in which CARICOM Research Institutes can design programmes to be innovative so as to transform their economies with innovations on new methods, new products, new software etc.,  so that serious productivity takes place.
It is also essential that CARICOM forge a common foreign policy and strategic alliances. This is made even more crucial for the up-coming meeting on an agreement to replace the Kyoto Agreement in Copenhagen in December – and also the reform of the global financial architecture, with UN reforms plus the WTO Doha agenda.
The road Map for a transformed CARICOM has to be results-based and tangible for people to benefit from investment for job creation in food, energy, health and education.
None of this, however, can be done with an ineffective and ‘meetings factory’ Secretariat and therefore a radical managerial overhaul of the Guyana-based institution is essential.
It can’t be that the Secretariat’s main function is planning meetings after meetings or agreeing with the easy way out by setting up task forces upon task forces and committees upon sub-committees. The top management of the Secretariat also need to stop second guessing the politicians and instead offer innovative ideas.
In the 1999 Consensus of Chaguaramas, Heads of Government articulated a vision for accelerating the regional integration movement and agreed among others that “the structure and functioning of the Secretariat should be examined with a view to re-organisation and strengthening in key areas to give it the capacity to do the work expected of it”. 
A team of Consultants was appointed to conduct the study. The 2002 Archer-Gomes report, ‘ A Review of the Structure and Functioning of the Caribbean Community Secretariat’ said the region’s response to the changing global political economy seems to lack the sense of urgency that the West Indian Commission sought to convey in the title of its Report “Time for Action”. 
The seven year old report said a good example of this lack of urgency is reflected in the manner in which deadlines are set and ignored so regularly, that some Heads  argue against the setting of deadlines.
“One of the main reasons for this inaction is the fact that CARICOM lacks the appropriate machinery to ensure that decisions taken are implemented.  The CARICOM Secretariat, is structurally weak by design, and is incapable, as structured, of performing the tasks that the integration movement needs and is expected of it.”
Perhaps what is needed now are top notch strategic planners such as Girvan or Brewster who could be tasked with a turnaround plan which will include a performance audit of the current structure of the management.
As the point has been made time and again, major corporate entities go about their business this way so why shouldn’t the CARICOM Secretariat?
And while it may be a good move for the Regional Negotiating Machinery to get political oversight on principle, it cannot be advanced by a decadent laid back Secretariat.
What is needed is an overhaul of the Secretariat into a lean and streamlined agency that relies more on information technology for teleconferences.
As the incoming Chairman of CARICOM in this crucial moment of our time, Guyana President has a major responsibility of getting CARICOM back on track. It cannot be delayed.
In the same passion that he talks about climate change to the international community, he needs to take up the challenge of the Caribbean Community head-on and move with radical surgery to halt its downward spiral.

From all accounts, last weekend’s Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain was a major success for the fact that leaders of the 34 countries across the western hemisphere were able to dialogue even though there were deep differences and it took place without the rancour and acrimony which pervaded the Summit in Argentina four years ago.
While many leaders heaped praise on the Trinidadian government for staging a memorable summit, Port of Spain cannot take full credit for the ‘feel good’ atmosphere which emerged from the bilateral meetings and plenary sessions.
Indeed, I’d say it was the now- famous charm of US President Barack Obama which defused the tension that overshadowed some of the meetings. Indeed Summit watchers were expecting fireworks to take place based on defiant pre-summit statements coming from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega and Bolivia’s President Evo Morales.
At the opening session, President Ortega’s 50-minute rambling, delivered mostly off-the-cuff and which harshly criticised the US interference in his country threatened to throw the summit’s ambience into glum and gloom.
But the US President, meeting Caribbean and Latin American leaders for the first time, jokingly told the agitated Nicaraguan leader,” I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old” causing leaders, their delegates and invited guests at the colourful ceremonial opening to chuckle, breaking the nervousness with some relief.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning, host chairman also attempted to lighten the atmosphere, poking some Caribbean fun at Bolivia’s President Morales, inviting him to have some doubles or corn soup to make up for the loss of meals he would have endured during his hunger strike to force opposition parliamentarians to support certain pieces of legislation.
Then there was the historic photo of the handshake between a polite US President and a gregarious Hugo Chavez who dropped his native Spanish tongue to declare in English to Mr. Obama, ” I want to be your friend.”
It would be interesting to hear the psychologist and body language readers explain the significance of this meeting and the famous handshake, whose photo was splashed across the Internet and newspapers the world over.
On the following day, Mr. Chavez, known for his flamboyance greeted the US President prior to the start of the first plenary with a pat on the back and a mischievous grin as he presented a book, ” Open Veins of Latin America” written from Eduardo Galeano in 1971, to Mr. Obama, perhaps to bridge the ideological differences between the two countries.
Oh yes, this was the same Mr. Chavez – a major critic of Washington and of former President George W. Bush, whom he once compared to the devil – who promised to roll out his artillery to deal with the young US President in Port of Spain.
Perhaps the dancing parang serenading group of Trinidadians who greeted El Presidente daily at the Kapok hotel where he was staying helped to soothe the anxiety he might have brought from Caracas and put him in a good frame of mind for his meetings.
But it was not always smooth sailing in the closed door meetings as the issue of Cuba and its reintegration in the Inter-American System dominated the discussions.
Taking advantage of the presence of the new US President, many countries pressed hard on Washington to eliminate the 47-year old trade embargo against Communist Cuba and called for an end to the exclusion of Havana from the Summit process.
Countries across the Caribbean and Latin America showed they were not appeased by the crack in the decades-old U.S. embargo allowing U.S. telecommunications firms to start providing service for Cubans and ending limits on family travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans in the United States to Cuba.
But President Obama said hoped the new measures would encourage Cuba’s one-party state to implement democratic reforms long demanded by Washington as a condition for removing sanctions imposed after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
While Cuba prevailed at the Summit, the issue of the global economic crisis and its impact on countries of the western hemisphere was forced to take a distant second place.
Apart from the US$750 billion – out the US$1.1 trillion rescue package by the recent G20 meeting – being made available to the International Monetary Fund, President Obama told leaders that Washington will also work to ensure that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) can take the necessary steps to increase its current levels of lending and to carefully study the needs for recapitalization in the future. 
He also announced the creation of a U$100 million microfinance growth fund to help small lenders in the Western Hemisphere continue making loans despite the global recession.
The fund will provide stable medium- and longer-term sources of finance to microfinance institutions and microfinance investment vehicles to help rebuild their capacity to lend during this difficult period.
A recent report showed 565 microfinance institutions in the region were providing US$9 billion in loans to about 9 million microenterprises in the region. The lenders face a potential shortfall of US$750 million this year.
Micro and small businesses provide most of the jobs in the hemisphere, making it imperative to ensure that credit is available to small lenders.
Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow zeroed in on the impact of the global crisis on small economies which presented severe challenges and its consequences were being felt in the financial sector, the real economy and on the social sector.
Describing the Caribbean economies as extremely open as reflected in an average trade/GDP ratio of more than 70 per cent, he said added to that, foreign investment accounts for a very significant proportion of total capital formation.
Further, the Community?s highest earner and largest employer – tourism – is crippled in consequence of its market being predominantly drawn from the two regions most severely affected by the crisis – Europe and North America.
Some Caribbean tourist locations have already reported a drop of more than two thirds in visitor flows and hotel occupancies.
Host Chairman of the Summit, Mr. Manning noted that economic statistics released by the IMF in January 2009 indicate that the world economy grew by just 0.5 per cent in 2008 but is expected to record negative growth for the first time in 60 years in 2009.
While the economies of the Western Hemisphere fared much better in 2008 growing on average by 4.8 per cent, economic growth is expected to slow sharply in 2009 to around 1.0 per cent.
The countries of the Americas, according to Mr. Manning, now face higher than expected declines in the price and volume of exports, restrictions in access to trade financing, difficulties in accessing other kinds of external finance and reduced remittances from migrant workers.
The current economic slump has depressed commodity prices, constrained the growth of investment, weakened labour markets and lowered business and consumer confidence.        
Countries are also not immune from the negative social consequences of the current global crisis which is threatening to derail the hard-won gains that were achieved over the past two decades and he affirmed that there is need for greater economic and commercial ties among the countries of the Americas, the restoration of credit flows to finance international trade and measures to arrest the abrupt decline in exports.
During the private sector forum preceding the Summit, Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Jose Miguel Insulza also painted a gloomy picture for the hemisphere as the global slowdown has led to a decline in the volume and price of exports, which over time will affect even economies with more diversified foreign trade. 
Economies will feel the adverse consequences of drops in remittances, in direct foreign investment, in credit, and in the demand for services like tourism, he said on the eve of the Summit.
According to ECLAC and IDB data, Latin America and the Caribbean could reverse the progress they have made in the fight against poverty. 
In the past six years, economic growth combined with improvements in the labor market lifted almost 40 million people out of poverty in the western hemisphre,
In addition, increases in the wages of urban workers and in social spending helped drive down inequality. 
But the present crisis, along will higher food prices and an expected further increase in energy costs, endangers these achievements, and more than 12 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean run the risk of falling below the poverty line in the next two years, according to Insulza.
The worsening labor market indicators and the decline in remittances will also have a negative distributive effect.
Under current circumstances, the OAS chief pointed out that public policy is facing the challenge, not only of stabilizing economic growth through anti-cyclical measures but also of designing instruments for protecting the most vulnerable population from the effects of the crisis.
In the meantime, we wait to see how countries of the western hemisphere will come together to work with each other in the same spirit of cooperation displayed at the Port of Spain Summit, to assist each other economically. 

Prime Minister Patrick Manning did promise that Trinidad and Tobago will reap the benefits of hosting this coming week of the Fifth Summit of the Americas, costing taxpayers over US$80 million.
We just did not know that the benefits would have come in so quickly!
So far, the gang-related killings, a daily norm in the country, seem to have taken a holiday and the murder rate which had been spiralling out of control since the start of the year has suddenly halted.
The prime minister also promised that the country would be the most secured in the run up to the summit and during the summit – and so far, he has delivered on that.
No doubt, this has to do with the increased police and army presence throughout the country and increased patrols in several hot spots along the east-west corridors of the country where gun-riddled bodies were dropping to the ground like flies.
Security forces have also been beefed up with assistance from soldiers and police officers from other Caribbean countries including Guyana.
An impenetrable security net has also be cast over Trinidad and Tobago as American, Venezuelan, Canadian and Brazilian security forces are teaming up with local law enforcement to protect the air and maritime spaces.
Many nationals, however, are wondering, what happens after the Summit. Would the momentum be kept up where there’s a police presence along the highways and byways and would the security forces continue to keep the criminal gangs under control or even break up the groups whose relentless murderous activities have put an ugly stain on the image of the country?
Another immediate benefit for the citizens is the cleaning up of Port of Spain of homeless persons and other indigents, the mentally-ill included.
The homeless who have been roaming Port of Spain, sleeping in parks and on pavements under the eaves of shops are being removed from the streets under the guise of a comprehensive programme to sanitize the capital city.
The government doesn’t want to link the removal of the indigents from the streets as part of their beautification programme leading up to the Summit taking place from April 17-19 and insists it is part of a larger plan to clean up the bustling city.
A flurry of activity of the clean-up and upgrade preparations and white-washing is also evident from the Piarco International Airport, along the route to Port of Spain and its environs and in the capital city which is hosting the summit of 34 democratically-elected leaders including US President Barack Obama.
The city of Port of Spain is also getting a welcome mini facelift.
Part of the main artery into the city is being widened, parks including one that was taken over by vagrants are being cleaned, benches and fire hydrants repainted, trees trimmed, flowers pruned and even part of a sea jutting into the capital which previously featured derelict boats is being cleared of the unsightly rotting debris.
Local government minister Hazel Manning, wife of prime minister Manning said that the beautification planning which has been on-going since last October will ensure that the country?s physical appearance and aesthetics were dramatically enhanced.
A highway beautification programme is also underway to improve the appearance of all the main transport corridors for the Summit of the Americas and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference, also being hosted in Port of Spain later this year.
A controversial berm project which includes a wall stretching several miles along the Beetham Gardens, a depressed and crime-infested community on the eastern outskirts of the capital is due to be completed by the end of this month.
Residents there have been protesting what they say is government’s intention to block off their community, mainly comprised of poor families, from foreign dignitaries when they pass along the nearby roads, sandwiching their place of residence.
Attorney Martin George commended the Government for the various beautification and clean-up exercises they were urgently and zealously pursuing for the Summit visitors.
However, he asked whether other communities in the country were not good enough to attract government attention and intervention to clean up and beautify and improve their surroundings.
“It is a serious question, because we are beginning to look like in days of old, when you were small and your parents had some important visitor coming to the house and they would be scrubbing, cleaning, mopping, dusting, polishing, all in a desperate effort to put on a good show,” he wrote in the Trinidad Guardian some weeks ago.
The country, he said, seems to be stuck in a culture and mentality of worship of everything foreign while ignoring and neglecting its own.
A letter writer to the newspaper, Svenn Grant said he couldn’t help but notice all the work being done in preparation for the Summit of the Americas.
“I don’t know the full itinerary, but I would like to lobby for the Prime Ministers and Presidents to visit Maracas Bay. If these distinguished men and women do so, the roads will be finally cleared of the debris, and repaired from the damage of last December?s landslips,” he wrote.
After the neglect of upgrading and maintaining infrastructure, members of the public could be excused for showing sarcasm and their tongue-in-cheek response at the government’s almost desperate action to clean up and beautify areas that will be traversed by the foreign dignitaries and their delegations.
In related Summit news, it seems government is determined to have a smooth and peaceful summit without distraction from any public demonstrations.
Police Commissioner James Philbert announced that three requests for public demonstrations during the days of the summit were denied.
Two weeks ago, prime minister Manning met with two umbrella trade union bodies separately and asked them to cooperate with the government, be on their best behavior and help the country put on a good show for the Summit.
Newspapers here also report that seven Scotland Yard police officers have arrived in the country to train local enforcement in crowd control tactics and settling public disturbances.
The officers from the Metropolitan Police Service in London were reported as being instrumental in keeping hundreds of rioters and protestors at bay during the G-20 Nations Summit in London last week.
But David Abdulah, president of the  Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (FITUN) was reported as saying that neither tear gas, rubber bullets nor batons will not prevent them from marching.
FITUN, the local organiser of the Fourth People’s Summit being held in parallel to the leaders’ summit has planned a march through the streets of Port of Spain on the second day of the Summit.
Opposition Leader  Basdeo Panday roundly condemned the move by some trade unions to refrain from protest action until after the Summit, saying that it is not in the interest of workers whose livelihood are currently under threat.
By cutting a deal to go easy on the Prime Minister until after the summit, trade unions are compromising their leverage to force the government to act in the best interest of the workers.
After the summit, the government would not have to worry about its public image so everything goes back to normal where the suffering of the general citizenry is ignored and infrastructure and society are neglected, Panday said.
The former trade unionist noted that there were several labour issues that are undermining the interest of the working class and there is no time like the present to press the government.
Thousands of workers are being sent home as a direct result of government policy and mismanagement of the economy while there has been an invasion of labour, not only from outside the country but from outside the hemisphere, depriving qualified nationals of the opportunity to work and support their families.
The labour fraternity, he argued, has a responsibility to their membership and the nation to capitalize on the global attention that the summit will bring.
According to Panday, going soft on the Prime Minister, the labour leaders will lose a valuable opportunity to safeguard the welfare of workers.
” You will have the Prime Minister cornered like never before and that opportunity, once squandered will never come back,” declared Panday.
In just a few days time, we will know whether trade unions will defy the police to highlight grievances of their members or give in to the government for a smooth and peaceful summit.