Barring the last-minute emergence of another candidate, former Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro is likely to be elected as new head of the 34-country Organization of American States (OAS) in a secret vote on March 18.
I recently interviewed Almagro, so far the only candidate for the job, who says he has the backing of 20 OAS-member countries. I was left with some troubling questions about whether, if elected, he will resurrect the Washington-D.C.-based organization from its current irrelevance.
To be fair, the OAS is still a bigger and potentially more important institution than the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), an Ecuador-based group of South American nations that was created to exclude the United States and Mexico from regional decisions. Judging from its role in Venezuela’s political crisis, UNASUR has become a de facto mutual protection society for repressive regimes.
The OAS has a Democratic Charter, and a quite respected Human Rights Commission. In addition, the OAS has more than a dozen anti-drug, security and education agencies.
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Etiquetas: Andres Oppenheimer, OAS
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