Gail Alexan­der

Twin is­land state T&T, spot­light­ed once again on the in­ter­na­tion­al cal­en­dar for next week's bi­en­ni­al Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM 2009) is aim­ing for ground-break­ing achieve­ments.

T&T has al­ready made its mark of sorts since this 21st CHOGM meet­ing will see the re­turn of the con­fer­ence to a Carib-bean lo­ca­tion for the first time in 24 years. Com­mon­wealth lead­ers in­clud­ing Queen Eliz­a­beth II, tit­u­lar head of the Com­mon­wealth, will be the sec­ond glob­al group­ing to cau­cus in T&T, fol­low­ing April's suc­cess­ful Sum­mit of Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States lead­ers in­clud­ing US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. If plans hint­ed at by gov­ern­ment sources ma­te­ri­alise and Oba­ma and oth­er for­eign lead­ers un­der­take a brief fly-in vis­it next Sat­ur­day–for CHOGM dis­cus­sions on cli­mate change–T&T will have achieved not on­ly bring­ing the Com­mon­wealth to­geth­er but al­so per­haps bridg­ing the gaps on cru­cial glob­al cli­mate change is­sues. "It's like­ly," said sources of pro­jec­tions to bring–East and West–some of the high­er pro­file G-20 lead­ers to­geth­er with 40 of their 52 Com­mon­wealth coun­ter­parts next week. CHOGM, as the supreme body of the Com­mon­wealth group­ing, which evolved over decades from for­mer British ter­ri­to­ries, has met every two years since 1971 to dis­cuss glob­al, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal is­sues.

Mem­bers for­mu­late poli­cies and po­si­tions col­lec­tive­ly via con­sen­sus for the ben­e­fit of the Com­mon­wealth's 2.6 bil­lion in­habi- tants. Pre-con­fer­ence ac­tiv­i­ties start to­day with the Com­mon­wealth Youth Fo­rum. Cruise ships host­ing events ar­rive to­mor­row and Mon­day. The Caribbean first host­ed CHOGM in 1975 in Ja­maica, fol­lowed by the Ba­hamas in 1985. T&T, en­ter­ing CHOGM his­to­ry as the meet­ing's third Caribbean venue, has the added dis­tinc­tion of host­ing the con­fer­ence in CHOGM's 60-year di­a­mond ju­bilee an­niver­sary. Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning be­comes the third Caribbean leader to chair CHOGM in Com­mon­wealth his­to­ry. The meet­ing brings 5,000 for­eign dig­ni­taries, busi­ness­men, youth and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 52 Com­mon­wealth coun­tries–half the globe–to T&T, fol­low­ing the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit which pro­filed this coun­try to the oth­er half six months ago. The Com­mon­wealth's 2009 con­fer­ence will be launched at 9 am next Fri­day from the largest stage in the Caribbean at T&T's new Per­form­ing Arts Acad­e­my. Ad­dress­es, ac­cord­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at on Thurs­day, will be de­liv­ered by Queen Eliz­a­beth II, CHOGM chair­man Man­ning, Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ka­malesh Shar­ma, and Ugan­dan Pres­i­dent Yow­eri Mu­sev­eni, who host­ed the last CHOGM (2007). The acad­e­my's star fea­tures in­clude a move­able mo­tor-pow­ered stage fa­cil­i­tat­ing per­for­mance changes, which will be used to ad­van­tage for Fri­day's two-hour open­ing cer­e­mo­ny chore­o­graphed by T&T's Bri­an Mc Far­lane. Work­ing ses­sions are at the Hy­att Re­gency and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's.

'Hot' is­sues

In CHOGM tra­di­tion, host T&T has cho­sen a con­fer­ence theme, "Part­ner­ing for a More Eq­ui­table and Sus­tain­able Fu­ture," which is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant con­sid­er­ing in­creased need for part­ner­ing by na­tions amid glob­al food se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic prob­lems. And al­so con­sid­er­ing the vul­ner­a­ble economies of 32 small na­tion states among the Com­mon- wealth's 52 mem­bers. Pre­vi­ous CHOGMs have dealt with con­tentions such as South African apartheid, Asian mil­i­tary coups and elec­toral fraud al­le­ga­tions in Zim­bab­we. CHOGM 2007 end­ed with com­mit­ment to com­bat cor­rup­tion. T&T's meet­ing sets the glob­al agen­da for the next two years un­til CHOGM 2011 (which takes place in Sri Lan­ka). Next week's agen­da pri­or­i­ty–the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis–ex­am­ines ef­fects of the prob­lem on over 20 per cent of the Com­mon­wealth's mem­bers who have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed. This in­cludes Caribbean economies whose tourism, trade and re­mit­tances have suf­fered. An­oth­er item of Caribbean con­cern will be dis­cus­sions on in­ten­si­fy­ing glob­al wa­ter short­ages which has had ex­ten­sive ef­fect on the east­ern Caribbean.

How­ev­er, cli­mate change is fast shap­ing up to ri­val the main item. CHOGM guests such as French Pres­i­dent Nicholas Sarkozy, Dan­ish Pres­i­dent Ras­mussen and UN leader Ban Ki Moon are ex­pect­ed to lob­by sup­port for po­si­tions ahead of a cru­cial Copen­hagen meet­ing in a week's time where far-reach­ing de­ci­sions on cli­mate change will be made. And if Oba­ma and oth­er non-Com­mon­wealth lead­ers do ar­rive, a push for con­sen­sus to­wards the Copen­hagen meet­ing is ex­pect­ed. In­deed, Man­ning has said T&T is "do­ing its ut­most to ad­vance the process that could re­sult in a glob­al agree­ment on this cru­cial mat­ter af­fect­ing all of hu­man­i­ty." How­ev­er, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon on Thurs­day was un­cer­tain if a firm posi- tion on the is­sue may shape up at CHOGM. Man­ning was re­cent­ly ju­bi­lant that To­ba­go's new pow­er plant's re­duced emis­sion ca­pa­bil­i­ty would stand T&T in good stead in CHOGM's cli­mate change scru-tiny. But whether this will be enough to counter T&T's car­bon foot­print em­a­nat­ing from planned alu­mini­um smelters re­mains to be seen. Long af­ter CHOGM. NGOs Net­work head Hazel Browne says stag­ing CHOGM it­self will leave a large car­bon foot­print. To re­duce this, the Peo­ple's Fo­rum event in­cludes plant­i­ng trees, she added.

On oth­er agen­da is­sues, Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at's Manoah Es­ip­isu says Rwan­da's ap­pli­ca­tion for mem­ber­ship will be de­cid­ed up­on by lead­ers.

How­ev­er no de­ci­sion on read­mit­ting Zim­bab­we to the Com­mon­wealth will be made. "Zim­bab­we has not reap­plied, but the hu­man­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion there could be dis­cussed if lead­ers so wish," Es­ip­isu added.

Protests on–and off

While, CHOGM ac­tiv­i­ties be­gin amid a call by T&T's Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre for sick-outs on Mon­day and Tues­day–on var­i­ous is­sues–in­ter­na­tion­al rad­i­cal pro­test­ers who had at­tempt­ed, un­suc­cess­ful­ly, to at­tend the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit may be at a min­i­mum for CHOGM, ac­cord­ing to Fi­tun's David Ab­du­lah. Ab­du­lah's group had in­vit­ed sev­er­al groups to par­tic­i­pate in their fo­rum for the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit. But those peo­ple were not al­lowed en­try to T&T. Ab­du­lah said he was on­ly aware of sev­er­al Cana­di­an NGOs–con­cerned about eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion–which may be com­ing for CHOGM, which he said is a dif­fer­ent fo­rum to the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit. Strong views are how­ev­er ex­pect­ed from some Com­mon­wealth hu­man rights ac­tivists who have protest­ed an­ti-hu­man rights state­ments by Gam­bian Pres­i­dent Yahya Jam­meh. Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att con­firmed the Com­mon­wealth group will be com­ing. While Jem­meh is not com­ing to T&T, his del­e­ga­tion will be and this may see the group rais­ing its con­cerns. Whether Jem­meh's state­ments will be dis­cussed by CHOGM's Min­is­te­r­i­al Ac­tion Group which ex­am­ines vi­o­la­tion of the Com­mon­wealth's (Harare ac­cord) cre­do, re­mains to be seen. The group's agen­da so far in­cludes the Fi­ji Is­lands, sus­pend­ed from the Com­mon­wealth re­cent­ly for fail­ing to call elec­tions.

Changes–Govt

Gov­ern­ment's boast that prob­lems of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit have been worked out re­mains to be seen as events un­fold. Lead co-or­di­nat­ing Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne yes­ter­day said im­prove­ments were made in var­i­ous ar­eas from a changed ac­cred­i­ta­tion process to less strin­gent se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments. All of which will be test­ed next week. As will Gov­ern­ment's pro­jec­tions of ben­e­fits. Browne said the cost of con­tracts for rent­ing ve­hi­cles, the Glob­cast ser­vice provider, so­cial func­tions and oth­er as­pects–in­clud­ing Mc Far­lane's fee for Fri­day's cul­tur­al pro­gramme, the same as for the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit launch–are con­tained in CHOGM's $235 mil­lion bud­get. Changes have been made to lead­ers' ar­rival arrange­ments to pre­vent over­lap of ar­riv­ing planes that oc­curred for the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit and cre­at­ed se­ri­ous chal­lenges, Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said Thurs­day. "That was caused since Sum­mit lead­ers used pri­vate planes and en­tered north and south ter­mi­nals," he added. Most CHOGM heads how­ev­er are us­ing com­mer­cial flights. Less planes are ar­riv­ing to­geth­er and will all be us­ing the $52 mil­lion south ter­mi­nal cen­tre on­ly.

Third T&T time charm for Roy­als

Aer­i­al, land and sea sur­veil­lance in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces and in­tel­li­gence sys­tems will par­tic­u­lar­ly be in­volved for the two-day state vis­it of Queen Eliz­a­beth II and Prince Philip. It will be the third trip to T&T for the 84-year-old monarch, she hav­ing vis­it­ed in 1966 and 1985. The Queen's del­e­ga­tion, ar­riv­ing via char­tered jet, stays at The Carl­ton Sa­van­nah ho­tel af­ter next Thurs­day's ar­rival, the British High Com­mis­sion al­so con­firmed. The Queen's agen­da in­cludes events in Trinidad while Prince Philip spends Thurs­day in To­ba­go. Over the 40-plus years of vis­its, this time the Roy­als will see a vast­ly changed T&T with an ex­pan­sive, tow­er­ing sky­line, miles of high­way and de­vel­op­ment–and a less clut­tered Beetham Es­tate, for­mer­ly home to piles of junk when last they vis­it­ed. The Beetham clean-up and com­ple­tion of the berm along the south­ern bor­der was ful­ly com­plet­ed two weeks ago.

Al­so, restora­tion of the east­ern fa­cade of the 105-year-old Queen's Roy­al Col­lege–one of roy­al­ty's lo­cal name­sakes–was un­veiled last Sat­ur­day, in time for the Roy­al cou­ple's pas­sage around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. Un­der­go­ing work since 2005, the build­ing was re­ju­ve­nat­ed to its orig­i­nal burnt-um­ber and grey fa­cade, says QRC prin­ci­pal Lennard Hink­son. The over­all $35 mil­lion job will be ful­ly com­plete soon. Prince Philip will be among 32-plus vis­it­ing spous­es. A spe­cial pro­gramme is planned by the wife of CHOGM's chair­man, Hazel Man­ning, as well as Queen Eliz­a­beth. Fin­ish­ing touch­es were added Thurs­day to the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre's new $10 mil­lion out­door stage where part of the spous­es' pro­gramme will be host­ed. Sev­er­al city routes be­ing used by lead­ers were paved as part of Works' na­tion­al road paving pro­gramme fund­ed by a bonds is­sue.

EVENTS

20/28: Youth Fo­rum (Van­guard Ho­tel, To­ba­go, "Caribbean Princess" lin­er–PoS).

22/26: Peo­ple's Fo­rum (Queen's Hall, Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel).

23/26: Busi­ness Fo­rum (Ser­e­nade of the Seas lin­er–PoS).

26/28: State Vis­it of Queen Eliz­a­beth II (Trinidad events), Prince Philip (To­ba­go).

24/26:For­eign Min­is­ters' meet­ing (Hilton).

25: Min­is­te­r­i­al Ac­tion Group (Hilton).

27/29: Com­mon­wealth lead­ers' meet­ing (Per­form­ing Arts Acad­e­my, Hy­att, Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre).

28/29: Spous­es pro­gramme (Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Queen's Hall, Chaud restau­rant, Hy­att, Peo­ple's Space).

DE­VEL­OP­ING

* T&T aims to bro­ker cli­mate change thrust.

* Protests ahead (or not).

* Tighter ar­rival plans.

*Roy­als see vast changes.