Livewire - Amnesty International blogging for human rights

Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International’s section in Canada (English)

It happens only once every four years. Leaders from all of the nations in the Americas, except Cuba, gather to grapple with the major challenges the hemisphere faces. It should be momentous and dynamic. Unfortunately, at least for civil society groups, the beginning to the 2009 Summit of the Americas, in the Trinidadian capital of Port of Spain, has instead been marked by a great deal of frustration and aggravation.

Our three-person Amnesty International delegation has been in the country for a couple of days now.  Ivahanna Larossa, Director of Amnesty International’s section in Uruguay, and I are attending the official Civil Society Summit that precedes the leaders’ summit that opens on Friday 17. Stacy Shapiro from the International Secretariat is taking part in the alternative Peoples’ Summit on the campus of the University of the West Indies, to the east of the city. We will join her there at the end of the week.

The Civil Society Summit has, to date, been a profound disappointment. It all begins with what is, by any measure, an uncomfortable setting for such a meeting: a large cruise ship, the Carnival Victory, which usually plies Caribbean waters with hundreds of vacationers on board. This time, the ship is docked in Port of Spain.

Many of us who are taking part in the meeting are also staying on the ship, because the complexities of navigating various security checks to get on and off are too time-consuming. So we find ourselves feeling trapped on board an ornate cruise ship, expected to engage in thoughtful debates about poverty and marginalization in the Americas. The irony could not be more apparent.

There have also been enormous problems with the accreditation and registration processes for participants.  While Ivahanna and I did both make it through that labyrinth, many have not. Others have endured endless hours of being sent back and forth between various queues and different offices, in search of the elusive badge that makes it possible to access the secure zones around the summit sites. Many participants were simply not able to get through and have missed the first day of the meeting. Emotions are running high.

All of this is compounded by the fact that governments have failed to release a current version of the Declaration they have been negotiating for close to a year.  The only official version shared with civil society groups dates back to July 2008.  In the meetings today, Amnesty International’s and many of the participants made it abundantly clear that it is impossible to have meaningful and constructive consultations on the basis of a document that is so clearly out of date.

The first day’s meetings involved a large number of speakers and very little time for discussion and debate.  Nonetheless, we have been able to highlight some of Amnesty International’s key concerns in our interventions and in conversations with other delegates and the media. And there have been some powerful moments bringing to life the very real human rights problems the Americas face, such as a passionate plea from an Afro-Colombian woman for action to combat racism in the hemisphere.

There is a considerable buzz about the leaders arriving later in the week. Everyone wants to know whether there will be any chance to hear President Obama speak. Bolivian President Evo Morales was rumoured not to be coming because of a hunger strike he launched earlier this week, but his attendance was confirmed today.

It was also announced that the UN Secretary General will arrive on Saturday. Of course, everyone is talking about Cuba, and whether the announcement of a partial loosening of US restrictions against the island will defuse the anticipated showdown about Cuba’s exclusion and the longstanding US trade embargo against the country.

Our efforts will continue, to highlight the many ways that we feel that the Summit is failing to take human rights seriously.  Among the issues we are stressing are human rights and the economic downturn, the rights of Indigenous peoples, maternal mortality, slums, trade deals and the dismal rate of ratification of the hemisphere’s human rights treaties.

Tomorrow, Ivahanna will be making a presentation in one of the civil society summit sessions.  On Friday, Amnesty International will be running a workshop at the Peoples’ Summit.

Meanwhile, we certainly hope that Amnesty members throughout the Americas are doing everything they can to press their governments to put human rights at the centre of their deliberations this weekend in Trinidad.  And to take action at:  www.amnesty.ca/americas