Manning alone signs summit declaration

It was supposed to be his moment of glory, the spectacle to showcase Trinidad and Tobago to the world. In the end, the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain turned out to be an embarrassment for the government and people of the tiny twin-island state.

And summit host, Prime Minister Patrick Manning was the only leader to sign the summit declaration, which Manning described as a "compromised" document.

The signing was billed as a highlight of the historic summit. It took 18 months of negotiations to complete and outlined a hemispheric agenda which included human development and environmental sustainability.

But even before the summit began several leaders said they won't sign it, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. For Chavez it would be to protest Cuba’s exclusion from the Summit.

Speaking at the end of the a retreat at the Diplomatic Centre Sunday, Manning said, “The declaration itself did not have the approval of all 34 countries. Some countries had reservations about some elements of it and that is understandable because it is very difficult with 34 countries meeting and negotiating positions."

He explained that the summit agreed to "adopt" the document. "And in adopting it, we are recognising that there was not unanimity, even though there was, indeed, consensus on this very important matter,” he said.

The organisers had said that the Declaration of Port of Spain was an attempt to define a renewed hemispheric cooperation agenda for sustainable development in the Americas and to address the main themes of the summit “Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability”.

But Manning noted that the document did not fully reflect that because of the time it was negotiated, noting that the negotiations for the declaration had ended before the recent G-20 Summit in London had taken place.

“Our deliberations took that into account and came to additional conclusion that we were concerned about the allocation of resources to development institutions, particularly the Inter-American Development Bank.

“We expressed the view that we thought that the Western Hemisphere countries should not be disadvantaged as a consequence of an improper allocation of finances to the IDB and that the time was most appropriate and opportune to recapitalise the Inter American Development Bank,” Manning said.

The major embarrassment on Sunday was the chaos at the Diplomatic centre that ended in the cancellation of the 'family' portrait.

Nobody seemed to know what was going on and while some leaders were standing in their places for the portrait to be taken, others were nowhere to be seen. President Obama waited a while then had to leave for a news conference at the Hilton.

Some leaders had already left for the airport and officials had no clue about the whereabouts of others. So in the end no photo was taken.

It was the last of the string of things that went wrong, including a fight between journalists and security officials Saturday at the Hyatt, causing organisers to cancel all photo opportunities and pool gatherings for that day.

There was another fight on Friday between a security officer assigned to Argentine President Cristina de Kirchner, and a Special Branch officer at Piarco International Airport.

The summit secretariat is still investigating.

Event organizers have to start planning again. Trinidad and Tobago will host the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Conference (CHOGM) in November.