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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton partied at Café Havana in Cartagena, Colombia after the VI Summit of the Americas closed on Sunday.
It was a hot, tropical night in Colombia and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a couple of swigs from a bottle of beer and danced a mean rumba at a Cartagena bar called, irony of ironies, Caf Havana.
Clinton, who was in Colombia to take part in the VI Summit of the Americas, which ended last Sunday, had a wonderful time.
She probably was the only one who did aside, of course, from some members of President Obamas Secret Service detail. Those men, as much of the world knows by now, enjoyed themselves in ugly American fashion with some hot Colombian seoritas de la noche.
But that was all the fun there was to be had at the VI Summit of the Americas, by most accounts a boring, tiring and ultimately useless event.
Theres a great deal of irony in the fact that the Caf Havana-dancing Clinton has been an unwavering backer of the 50-year-old U.S. foreign policy embarrassment known as the Cuban Embargo.
Somehow, her chances of being able to knock back a Cuban beer, dance to real Cuban rumba and enjoy the hot nightlife of the real La Habana seem pretty slim at the moment.
Hey, who knows, maybe after having such a great time at (Caf) Havana she will work to lift to embargo so she can go dancing in La Habana someone posted in Facebook.
Even more ironic is that the current guardian of U.S. foreign policy Havana Hillary, as some now fondly call her in beautiful Cartagena had picked a Cuba-themed bar to soltarse el moo (let her hair down) and let loose from all her weeks of hard work to, well, try to isolate Cuba and keep it out of the summit.
Clinton and Obama succeeded in closing the door on the VI Summit to Cuba; but now they may be thinking that wasnt such great idea.
After all was said and done, it was the U.S. that emerged from the summit increasingly isolated. Every other head of state present (except that of Canada) refused to sign a joint declaration in protest against the continued exclusion of Cuba from the event.
Bolivian President Evo Moral es put it this way: I think this is a rebellion of Latin American countries against the United States.
As should have been expected, both President Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, the host, declared the summit a great success.
But dont believe them. From all other reports it was bad from the start. To begin with, even superstar pop singer Shakira a native of Colombia mangled the Colombian national anthem at the opening ceremony!
So low were the expectations that the very fact that Obama sat through the proceedings listening politely to the Latin American leaders made Mexican President Felipe Caldern all soft and mushy inside:
I think its the first time Ive seen a President of the United States spend almost the entire summit sitting, listening to all the concerns of all the countries, an obviously moved Caldern said. Undoubtedly at least to him one of the great moments of the summit.
In truth, the meeting resembled a N orth vs. South tug of war, with blazer-wearing Obama and Canadian first minister Steve Harper pulling on one end of a rope, and the guayabera -clad Latin leaders at the other.
Even before Clinton danced the night away at Caf Havana, the leaders of Latin America including Santos, a conservative and one of the strongest allies of the U.S. in the region called for the inclusion of Cuba in all future meetings.
Harper and Obama, on the other hand, stuck by themselves to the same old, stale, counterproductive Cold War policy of isolating Cuba and punishing its people. It wasnt exactly a diplomatic triumph for the U.S.
aruiz@nydailynews.com
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