The 34 hemispheric leaders who attended the Fifth Summit of the Americas in T&T did not agree unanimously to the Declaration of Port-of-Spain. Instead, what emerged was a “compromised document which met the approbation of some and did not meet the approbation of others,” Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday.

“And, therefore, what we agreed to do today is 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.” As such, Manning said the hemispheric leaders agreed that, as chairman of the conference, he should sign the document “which is a task that I was very pleased to carry out.” Manning made the announcement in a brief address after signing the Declaration of Port-of-Spain during the closing ceremony of the summit at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. No other leader signed the declaration.

The signing was expected to be one of the highlights of the historic summit, which ended yesterday. The declaration outlined a hemispheric agenda which included human development and environmental sustainability. However, the document was in no way binding. Before the summit, several leaders— including controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—had stated that he would not have signed the declaration in protest of Cuba’s exclusion from the three-day deliberations. Manning told his audience, however, that the lack of consensus on the signing of the declaration was not totally unexpected.

“The declaration itself did not have the approval of all 34 countries. It did not,” he said “Some countries had a reservation about some elements of it and that is understandable, my dear friends, because it is very difficult with 34 countries meeting and negotiating a situation—it is a negotiated situation—which means that no one country is likely to get everything that that country requires,” he said.

Manning said at the time the document was conceived, approximately two years ago, the administrations of several countries were very different from what obtained today. “In the United States, there was a different President (George Bush) and the world situation, especially the world economic situation was very different from the situation that has now emerged and the situation to which a lot of attention is now being addressed worldwide and which also has attracted the attention of the leaders gathered here in Port-of-Spain,” he said.

The PM said leaders were concerned about the allocation of resources to development institutions, particularly the Inter-American Bank. “We expressed the view that we thought the IADB should not disadvantage the western hemisphere countries as a consequence of an improper allocation of finances to the IADB and that the time was most appropriate and opportune to re-capitalise the Inter-American Development Bank, was a sentiment coming out of the meeting,” he said.