Around the Americas: April 9-15, 2009

A round-up this week of what is being written and predicted about the Summit of the Americas which gets underway Friday:

Brookings Institution fellow Vanda Velbab-Brown, in a video report, says human insecurity is the burning issue in the Americas with the weakness and unresponsive of the state being its central cause. She adds that Obama should embrace and recognize the aspirations of Latin Americans, a mostly stylistic change in tone from the Bush administration.

A CSIS report says the current economic crisis and public security concerns will be the central issues discussed at the Summit. The report adds that while President Obama cannot commit the U.S. Congress to major initiatives for the region that require appropriations, “he can announce “deliverables” in the form of specific policy steps that advance the U.S. national interest and begin to repair the deteriorated image of the United States in the region.”

A Council on Foreign Relations panel with special adviser Jeffrey Davidow on the Summit explores the issues of the environment, development, and energy…and the absence of Cuba from the official agenda.

The New America Foundation focuses on the issue of Cuba in a panel discussion Tuesday, with most panelists critical of President Obama for not going further in his modifications to U.S. Cuba policy announced Monday.

The Center for American Progress in a Summit briefing paper argues that President Obama must stay focused on the meetings stated purpose this year—energy security and environmental sustainability.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Roberts argues that President Obama should stop saying he will in “listening mode” and take a leadership role at the Summit on the issue of free trade.

The Institute for Policy Studies’ Foreign Policy in Focus project interviews 14 civil society leaders from around the region who provide their opinions on policy changes in areas of the economy, the environment, and trade that the Obama administration could make.

At Tom Dispatch, historian Greg Grandin has a piece on a different Americas Summit which took place in another world in turmoil: the Seventh Pan-American Conference in December 1933 in Montevideo, Uruguay.

And, in the Washington Post, an interview with John Williamson, the British economist who coined the 10-point paper that became known as the “Washington Consensus.” Williamson argues that the economic prescriptions he once made are not dead and, indeed, are still very present in the G-20 communique itself.