Sunday, April 19, 2009
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — President Barack Obama offered a spirit of cooperation to America’s hemispheric neighbors at a summit Saturday, listening to complaints about past U.S. meddling and even reaching out to Venezuela’s leftist leader.
While he worked to ease friction between the U.S. and their countries, Obama cautioned leaders at the Summit of the Americas to resist a temptation to blame all their problems on their behemoth neighbor to the north.
“I have a lot to learn, and I very much look forward to listening and figuring out how we can work together more effectively,” he said.
Obama said he was ready to accept Cuban President Raul Castro’s proposal of talks on issues once off-limits for Cuba, including political prisoners held by the Communist government.
While praising America’s initial effort to thaw relations with Havana, the leaders pushed the U.S. to go further and lift the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
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 partnership to develop alternative energy sources and fight global warming.
As the first full day of meetings began on the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday, Obama exchanged handshakes and pats on the back with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who once likened Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, to the devil.
In front of photographers, Chavez gave Obama a copy of “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” a book by Eduardo Galeano that chronicles U.S. and European economic and political interference in the region.
Later, during a group photo, Obama reached behind several leaders at the summit to shake Chavez’s hand for the third time. Obama summoned a translator and the two smiled and spoke briefly.
“I think it was a good moment,” Chavez said. “I think President Obama is an intelligent man, compared to the previous U.S. president.”
Obama also extended a hand to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, whom President Ronald Reagan spent years trying to drive from power. Ortega was ousted in 1990 elections that ended Nicaragua’s civil war, but was returned to power by voters in 2006.