Obama to debut at Summit of the Americas

WASHINGTON — As Latin American countries such as El Salvador usher in their own changes, the U.S. president elected on a platform of change, Barack Obama, will make his official entrance into the region this week when he attends the fifth Summit of the Americas.

Obama will be one of 34 heads of government assembled in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, for what experts say will be a major step in reconciling a bruised and neglected relationship.

Officially, six topics are on the summit agenda: prosperity, energy, the environment, security, democratic governance and the summit process itself.

The global economic crisis, which threatens to erase the gains in the fight against hemispheric poverty, also promises to be a vital point of discussion.

In advance of the summit, which begins Friday, the Obama administration Monday announced the lifting of long-standing restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting the island and sending money to their relatives in Cuba.

Just last month, Congress passed a spending bill that permits more frequent visits of Cuban exiles and their families to the island.

The United States long has been criticized for dictating policy not only on Cuba but throughout the region, and this summit is Obama's first opportunity to show his closest neighbors a different kind of foreign policy.

On Wednesday, in a development seen by Cuba's state-run media as sign of a change in Washington, D.C., a Texas grand jury issued a federal indictment accusing anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles of lying about his involvement in the 1997 bombings of tourist hotels in Havana.

This is the first time the United States has linked the former CIA agent to the terrorist attacks, something the Castro regime has long wanted.

The official Cuban government newspaper, Granma, described the charges as "a surprising change of strategy" by the United States.

Seven members of the Black Congressional Caucus returned last week from meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro and former President Fidel Castro, and said the time is ripe to move toward normalized relations between the two countries.

Mexico — with such neighbor-driven issues as immigration and drug trafficking — so far has received most of the U.S. attention to Latin America, with visits from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and even Obama himself, who plans to stop there this week on his way to the summit.