USA charts roadmap to change OAS Democratic Charter vs. Venezuela

[Say_What]

<clips>

USA charts roadmap to change OAS Democratic Charter vs. Venezuela

El Tiempo de Bogota broadsheet has published part of a report that the Bush administration is determined to isolate the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez Frias and will push for a modification of the Organization of American States (OAS) Democratic Charter.

The USA government, the newspaper reports, has already started to move its pieces, leading up to next July’s OAS General Assembly aimed at penalizing States that "gradually break away from democracy."

However, it would appear that general opinion seems to indicate that the USA will have an uphill struggle to get the clause introduced, unless they can bully or pay countries into compliance to get a majority vote. The USA is banking on convincing 34 member countries that although President Chavez Frias won elections at the ballot box, he has undermined the opposition and restricted press freedoms and the Judiciary, demonstrating a "new" form of authoritarianism.

Nobel Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel says that if the USA plan prospers, it would mean the end of the OAS.

* Furthermore, the poet states that possible assassination attempts on President Chavez Frias cannot be ruled out.

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25962

[arcos]

1. not gonna happen...

The South American nations will never support this, especially since most Presidents in the area are now left wing. Even though Central American countries are big "allies" of the US, I don't see them supporting it either.

So, they would need all the votes from Caribbean countries and considering they are more than a little pissed of because of Haiti... the US won't get enough support for this.

[Trillo]

2. Why does this sound familiar?

From the first post: "undermined the opposition and restricted press freedoms and the Judiciary, demonstrating a "new" form of authoritarianism."

[mutus_frutex]

3. The OAS is dead, anyway.

The OAS is a puppet of the US and, for all purposes, it is a dead body.

[VirginiaDem]

11. I disagree and this is how we test it--if the alteration makes it

through, then you win. If it doesn't, I win. Do we gotta bet?

[mutus_frutex]

12. One thing I forgot to say..

Is that I agree with other posters, this won't pass. So I give you that in advance.. :-)

The question is that the OAS has become utterly useless. It has no teeth whatsoever...

Cheers..

[VirginiaDem]

15. It's toothless but not useless as crazy as that sounds...

Not every organization needs a credible threat of force to be useful. The OAS has gotten more useful, not less in the post-Cold War era. They've gone pro-democracy in a good way; they've written it into rules and they've been actively involved in a number of crises. A lot of people would criticize their role in the Venezuelan crisis; they encouraged the referendum and all of that but they helped monitor the results and proclaimed them fair and have left it at that since then, as far as I know. That's why I say if the rules are changed in the US' favor, then they're essentially a puppet organization. But if not, then it means they mean what they say and they have at least enough of a backbone to be meaningfully independent.

[LdyGuique]

4. The CIA was involved in the coup against Chavez

And he rewon his Presidency handily with a 67% of the vote

He and Castro recently attended Uruguay's new President's inauguration, who is also a socialist.

The real issue? Chavez has signed agreements with China to sell its oil to them.

[Say_What]

6. Uruguay's new pres is being inaugurated tomorrow. Fidel bowed out due to

health problems. As for the agreements with China, that occured WAY after the coup and other attemps to unseat Chavez.

The real issue is far more complex and goes back much further than the oil agreements with China, which were just signed this year.

Chavez' relationship with Castro, his very vocal anti-globalization ideas, reuniting Venezuela with OPEC, and his restructuring of PDVSA have all been very much a thorn in the side of the US. Uncle Sam can't afford to have another country south of the border thumbing their nose at the USSA and providing for the poor despite bottomless money pits to overthrow their governments. To add to that, Latin America is uniting for the purpose to get out from under their ugly northern neighbor.

[LdyGuique]

9. Oh, I agree -- it's very complex

But, I do see all of the negotiations going on around the "third" world as being symptomatic of finding a balance of power against the U.S.

Russia, China, India, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela -- the list is growing by the day on this mix-match agreements to thwart U.S. policies. It's both against the "imperialst" policies of Corporate America, the WTO, the World Bank and its repressive policies, and against all of the sabre-rattling and chest-thumping of the U.S.

Amazing how half-witted diplomacy causes real diplomacy.

[applegrove]

5. What they mean is penalize those who: "gradually break away from

letting USA have at their resources first".

[0rganism]

7. "Isolate the Venezuelan government"? HAHAHAHAHAHA

That's pretty rich. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which country has been doing a damn fine job of isolating itself over the past four years. Venezuela will have the last laugh on this one.

[MasonJar]

8. It just never stops with this bunch of freaks. Bush, go lie down in a

pile of your own offal.

[markus]

10. How can we help the rest of the OAS expel the US?

The gradual elimination of Democracy, eh?

[Eloriel]

13. I didn't think it possible -- these people get more Orwellian

every damn day.

[Imperialism Inc.]

14. Is the Bogota Times a reliable paper?

I'm pretty cynical but this just sounds too bizarre and stupid even for Bushco (ok, so there probably is no such thing as too stupid for Bushco). Why don't they just ask for a clause that says they can remove anyone they don't like?

[Say_What]

16. This is how the US has operated for years--bully of the planet

Nobel Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel who won the nobel prize for human rights work in his native Argentina had this to say:

...Esquivel noted that the US’ military presence in the region is not only in Plan Colombia, the anti-narcotics military aid to Colombia, but also in Plan Pueblo Panama, and the Manta military base in Ecuador, forming a “triple frontier” designed to sharpen the assault on Venezuela. Plan Pueblo Panama is a privatization scheme that, according to the US, will industrialize Central America from Pueblo, Mexico to Panama. The military base at Manta is one of the US’ three “Forward Operating Locations” (FOL) meant to replace the Howard Air Force Base in Panama, closed in 1999 (the other two FOLs are in El Salvador and the Dutch Antilles-Aruba-Curaçao).

Esquivel also cautioned that the Organization of American States (OAS) could be manipulated to serve US foreign policy objectives, and argued that if this happens the organization should be dissolved.

“If these things are permitted, if the OAS is manipulated for military intervention,” said Esquivel, “this organization should disappear or be transformed, since its stated function is to democratize and not to be at the service of a great power.”

Esquivel cited a recent report in Colombian daily El Tiempo, which claimed that Washington has begun pushing for changes in the OAS charter that would facilitate the isolation of and intervention in countries perceived by the US to be undemocratic.

“The idea, according to sources consulted by El Tiempo,” said Esquivel, “is to modify the Democratic Charter of the organization in the next general assembly of the 34 member countries,” to be held next June in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1525