As if taking a cue from his United States counterpart Barack Obama, Prime Minister Patrick Manning says the deliberations during the Fifth Summit of the Americas in T&T have heralded a new dawn in hemispheric relations. “May I say on a personal note, dear friends, that I have been in public life for quite a long time...And I have attended a number of conferences,” he told guests yesterday, after signing the Declaration of Port-of-Spain during the closing ceremony at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. “But never before have I attended a conference where the spirit of co-operation was as good as the spirit we met here in Port-of-Spain.

“And the one thing I am confident about—and in saying that, I am saying this, I speak for all of my colleagues —the one thing I am confident about is that these deliberations have heralded the dawn of a newer and brighter and better day than we anticipated when we launched our conference on Friday afternoon.” Manning publicly lauded the efforts of his counterparts throughout the region in this regard. “My dear friends, when the going got rough and the temperature began to rise somewhat, it was one Caricom head or a next who intervened to ensure that we kept the temperature at a level we considered acceptable and tolerable,” he said.

“But, it did not have too much of that because the spirit of co-operation is very different from the spirit that we have seen elsewhere,” he added, to loud applause from the gathering. Earlier, in a veiled reference to the Cuba situation, he said: “I am extremely pleased with what threatened to be a summit that could have been derailed by the agendas of individuals and individual countries has turned out to be signal example of co-operation and collaboration among the countries in the western hemisphere.” The PM, in his brief address, also seized the opportunity to thank those who had contributed to the summit’s success.

“What you have seen, dear friends, is the culmination of the efforts of many people,” he said. “In particular, the double secretariat of Trinidad and Tobago, headed by Ambassador Luis Alberto Rodriguez, worked tirelessly to bring this about. “It is not easy to negotiate these matters...It is not easy to put conferences of this nature.” He also said that while the arrangements might not have been perfect, “I think I am in a position to say that our double secretariat has done extremely well and I wish to congratulate them.”