Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

POLITICS-AMERICAS: Powell Assails Cuba at OAS Assembly

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Jun 9 2003 (IPS) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke out against the Cuban government Monday during the 33rd general assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS), and he insinuated that differences with some Latin American countries about the Iraq war are a thing of the past.

Cuba, which was expelled from the OAS in the 1960s, was the major absence but also Monday’s protagonist of the assembly, which Chile’s President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated Sunday in Santiago. The meeting of the foreign ministers of the 34 member states is to wrap up Tuesday with a renewed commitment to the hemisphere’s democratic governance.

Powell invoked the region’s governance, stating, "Tyrants, traffickers and terrorists cannot thrive in an inter-American community of robust democracies, healthy citizenries and dynamic economies."

The U.S. official thus upheld the policy of President George W. Bush, which equates the Cuban socialist government of Fidel Castro with insurgent groups in other countries, particularly the leftist FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), which he accuses of financing their activities through drug trafficking.

In his 10-minute address, Powell urged the nations of the Americas to "find ways to hasten the inevitable democratic transition in Cuba" and maintained that "the people of Cuba increasingly look to the OAS for help in defending their fundamental freedoms against the depredations of our hemisphere’s only dictatorship."

He noted the Cuban government’s executions of three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry and the long prison sentences handed down against 75 dissidents in April. And he praised the countries that proposed an OAS resolution three weeks ago that would express official concern about the human rights situation on the island.

Although Powell did not mention them, the initiative was proposed by Canada, Chile and Uruguay, but they failed to garner enough signatures.

The U.S. secretary’s speech marked a contrast with the presentations of other foreign ministers, who warned of the crisis of democratic governance resulting from corruption, from the distancing between political parties and citizens, and from unsatisfied social demands – phenomena common to most of the countries of the Americas.

Chile’s Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear, elected chair of the OAS assembly, underscored in her address that while more than half of the Latin American population resoundingly supports democracy, only a third say they are satisfied with this system of government.

President Lagos said Sunday, "If the social panorama is left behind, the concept of governance itself is not complete," and he underscored that "achieving social cohesion in a country is essential for political governance."

Powell, meanwhile, stressed that "political democracy and economic opportunity come together in good governance." He went on to state that the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) "would create greater prosperity for nearly 800 million people in 34 countries of our hemisphere."

Washington is the most ardent champion of the negotiations to create the FTAA, which would extend from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, encompassing all countries of the Americas except Cuba.

The U.S. secretary of state, who heads to Buenos Aires on Tuesday, held bilateral meetings with several of his Latin American counterparts before meeting with Lagos, with whom he spoke for a half-hour behind closed doors.

In a subsequent press conference, the Chilean president reported that only the first three minutes of the meeting were spent discussing the opposing positions of the United States and Chile on the war against Iraq, which had been manifest in the United Nations Security Council. The rest of the conversation was "about the future," he said.

Chile and Mexico, the two Latin American countries currently holding seats in the U.N. Security Council, opposed the U.S.- British attack against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The war was launched Mar. 20 with the pretext of destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but no such arms have been uncovered in the Arab country to date.

The U.S.-led invasion had the full support of the Central American governments and Colombia, while Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela joined Mexico and Chile in rejecting the pre-emptive war.

While Lagos received Powell in La Moneda, the presidential palace, some 20 protesters gathered outside, shouting slogans in solidarity with Cuba and against the Bush government. Sunday, during the inauguration of the assembly, a similar demonstration took place outside the meeting venue, the Diego Portales building.

"The OAS responds only to the particular interests of the United States. These are meetings where North America sets the rules for the rest of the countries. What did the OAS do when the United States ignored the U.N. and attacked Iraq, where we are still waiting for the much-talked-about weapons of mass destruction to appear," protester Eugenio Ordaz told IPS.

Lagos, in explaining to the press the brief reference to Iraq in his meeting with Powell, said, "I didn’t think it was appropriate to initiate a conversation about the future without settling issues from the past."

Most of his conversation with the U.S. official, he said, was dedicated to discussion of the difficult negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.

According to reports about the meeting, Powell did not officially present Lagos with a request for Chilean troops to join the foreign forces in Iraq, which are under U.S.-British command.

Sources from the Chilean Foreign Ministry told IPS that the Lagos government is sticking to its position that all aspects related to Iraq’s future should be dealt with in the U.N., and should give priority to reconstruction efforts.

Powell could make the request for troops Tuesday to Argentina’s President Néstor Kirchner.

According to the Argentine daily ‘Clarín’, the Argentine government has already decided that it would reject such a proposal.