The Sixth Summit of the Americas 2012
By Adina Moloman
Source: www.summit-americas.org, Reuters, Fox News
This Saturday, April 14, 34 Heads of State and Government will assist at the Sixth Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Cartagena, Colombia.
The summit is every three years, previous summits took place in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (2009); Mar del Plata, Argentina (2005) Monterrey, Mexico (Special Summit, 2004), Quebec City, Canada (2001); Santiago, Chile (1998); Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, (Special Summit, 1996), the First Summit was in Miami, USA in 1994.
This year theme is “Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity”, where the idea is to define a new hemispheric agenda that will address regional aspects of development including poverty and inequalities, citizen security, disasters and access to technologies.
It was announced that Cuba would not be attending the summit, which is causing controversial reaction among Latin American leaders.
Leaders from ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas /Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América) previously threatened to boycott the meeting if Cuba were not invited. So far, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa announced a few days ago that he will not attend this month’s Summit of the Americas in Colombia as a protest.
Cuba’s position in general, will be discussed at the summit in a few days.
President Barack Obama confirmed his participation at the summit, as many other political/scientist/ business man leaders that will attend this event such as: Microsoft founder Bill Gates, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Mexican business man Carlos Slim, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, etc.
Every summit is concluding with a declaration, such as guarantee the human rights of all migrants, guarantee the human rights of workers by Mexico Manufacturers and others manufacturers in Latin America etc, pursuing prosperity through open markets, hemispheric integration, and sustainable development.
