CARACAS -- Venezuela ''will veto'' the final declaration due to be issued by this weekend's Fifth Summit of the Americas in neighboring Trinidad and Tobago, President Hugo Chávez said Thursday.

Chávez, who was in the eastern Venezuelan city of Cumaná for a pre-summit meeting with his closest allies -- including Cuba's Raúl Castro -- said the communique had been drafted, ``as if time had not passed.''

The summit in Port of Spain is seen as an opportunity for President Barack Obama's administration to begin to repair Washington's relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, which reached a low point under former President George W Bush.

However, Chávez has said the region's more radical governments, members of the Cuban/Venezuelan-led Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (known as ALBA, after its initials in Spanish) are, ''preparing their artillery.'' The exclusion of Cuba will be one of their main objections.

''We're going to Trinidad and Tobago to put that issue on the table,'' Chávez said. ``From the moment the curtain goes up, Cuba will appear on the stage.''

In other ALBA action, Chávez proposed creating ''mechanisms of cooperation'' with China and Iran, and said plans were underway to establish a common currency among ALBA-member nations for trade purposes.

Of the 34 countries attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, only the United States maintains a diplomatic stand-off with Cuba. There is broad agreement in the region that the lone communist country in the hemisphere should be welcomed back into the regional arena, and that the U.S. trade embargo should be lifted.

The secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, has indicated his belief that Cuba's membership to the regional body should be reactivated. It was suspended in 1962.

Ironically, Fidel Castro reiterated in recent days that Cuba has no interest in returning to an organization it sees as a creature of Washington. In an article published on Tuesday, he called it, ``the incarnation of treachery.''

While most of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean agree on the issue of Cuba, it remains unclear whether the other members of the ALBA alliance (Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia and Dominica) will side with Chávez on the summit declaration.

'Technically speaking, no one country can 'veto' such a declaration,'' said Virginia Contreras, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS. The lengthy communique, the product of months of negotiations, contains broad statements of principle, rather than commitments to specific actions.

The likelihood is that Chávez will do what he did at the Quebec Summit of the Americas in 2001, when he objected to the wording of a Democratic Charter (subsequently adopted by the OAS), on the grounds that it did not specify that democracy should be ''participatory.'' On that occasion, Venezuela signed, but noted its reservations.

The issue of Cuba aside, the ALBA group maintains the position that the global economic crisis can only be resolved if the world adopts Chávez's so-called ''21st century'' socialism.

''Until we put an end to capitalism, it is impossible to save humanity,'' said Bolivian President Evo Morales, who arrived in Cumaná following a five-day hunger strike that was successful in pressuring congress to approve a new law that will allow him to seek reelection.

Much media attention has focused on the possibility of a meeting between Obama and Chávez, a first between the Venezuelan leader and a U.S. president since the former's brief encounter with Bill Clinton in Washington in 2000.

Obama is scheduled to hold a meeting Saturday with the 11 members of Unasur, which groups the nations of South America and is currently led by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

''Let's hope the president goes there to listen,'' Chávez said Thursday, ``and doesn't follow the example of the King of Spain, when he said, `why don't you shut up?'.''

King Juan Carlos' attempt to silence the Venezuelan president came at a summit conference in Chile in 2007. Chávez had repeatedly referred to former Spanish premier José María Aznar as a ``fascist.''

The Venezuelan president has a habit of using summits to seek the media spotlight, and of disrupting carefully planned agendas. The last Summit of the Americas, in Mar del Plata, Argentina, broke up in virtual disarray amid a noisy, parallel ''Peoples Summit'' organized by Chávez himself.

On that occasion, the issue was the Free Trade Area of the Americas promoted by President Bush.

Some Chávez watchers say the Venezuelan leader does not want to be outshined by Obama at the gathering just miles from his country's shores.

''He can't stand anyone stealing the limelight,'' said Virginia Contreras, who served as Chávez's OAS ambassador from 1999 to 2001. ``He's going to try to stand out one way or another -- it's just his nature.''

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@