Castro's apologists make a move at the OAS.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
The Organization of American States claims to be "the region's principal
multilateral forum for strengthening democracy, promoting human rights,
and confronting shared problems such as poverty, terrorism, illegal
drugs and corruption."
Why would an organization designed to "strengthen democracy" want Cuba
as a member, asks Mary Anastasia O'Grady.
Now OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza wants the group to be able
to add a new goal to the list: legitimizing the Cuban military
dictatorship by making it a member.
How he intends to do it and why I'll get to in a moment. But first let's
review how Cuba got the OAS boot in the first place. Contrary to Mr.
Insulza's assertions, Cuba has not changed since its 1962 expulsion, and
renewing its membership now will undermine OAS credibility. It will also
be a gut punch to the island's dissidents who, according to the Center
of Human Rights Rapporteurs in Cuba, are being brutalized daily by Raúl
Castro's thugs.
Dissidents also can't be too happy with the news that the Obama team has
been holding meetings with the regime to see if it can, according to one
official quoted in the New York Times, have a "serious, civil, open
relationship" with the owners of the Cuban slave plantation. Still, Tom
Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Western
Hemisphere, suggests that, at least within the OAS, the U.S. is planning
to stand up for the long-suffering Cuban people. "Giving Cuba a pass on
the OAS's democracy and human rights requirements would be bad for the
OAS and bad for Cuba," he says.
Since its founding in 1948, the OAS has professed a belief that the
"historic mission of America is to offer to man a land of liberty and a
favorable environment for the development of his personality and the
realization of his just aspirations."
The Americas in the News
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Americas page.
The Cuban regime is at odds with these ideals and in January 1962 the
OAS expelled it, resolving: "That adherence by any member of the
Organization of American states to Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with
the inter-American system and the alignment of such a government with
the communist bloc breaks the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere."
In other words, because the Castro government had murdered and
imprisoned dissidents, done away with free elections and economic and
civil liberties, and allied itself with communism, Cuba was deemed unfit
for OAS membership.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the OAS strengthened its commitment to democracy and
free elections by adopting the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
All OAS members signed onto the charter, signaling that political
liberty and to a lesser extent economic liberty might be finally taking
hold in Latin America. But Cuba was still supporting violence and terror
in the region. Worse yet, one of Fidel Castro's disciples, Hugo Chávez,
had won the presidential election in Venezuela and was militarizing the
government. Over the next seven years he would slowly strip the
population of civil and economic rights and use his oil wealth to spread
Bolivarian revolution to neighboring states.
He has also bought allegiances at the OAS. Today, it is Mr. Chávez along
with Brazil's President Lula da Silva (another Fidel ally) who call the
shots at the OAS, not Mr. Insulza (though as a Chilean Socialist, he is
no doubt sympathetic to their views). What the fidelistas want is
international legitimacy for Cuba. "Step one," as Mr. Insulza has
referred to his proposal, is to lift the 1962 resolution. Then, he told
me by telephone last week, "countries" can decide whether the
dictatorship should be allowed back into the OAS.
His reasoning? The 1962 resolution is "not valid anymore," he told the
Americas Society in an interview last week, "and it doesn't condemn Cuba
for not being democratic. It condemns it for being a member of the
Sino-Soviet axis and says that this axis is aggressive against the
United States. But it doesn't exist anymore. . . it's really crazy. It
is a piece of the Cold War that was left in a corner and we must get rid
of it."
This so betrays both the letter and the spirit of the resolution that it
is hard to interpret it as anything other than a sop to the dictator and
his friends. Yes, the Cold War is over. But the Cuban military today has
close bilateral ties with North Korea and Iran, two points on a new axis
of evil that threaten world peace and stability. Cuba is also a safe
haven and medical outpost for Colombian narcotrafficking guerrillas.
Moreover, the regime still pledges its loyalty to Marxist-Leninist
ideology, which is directly at odds with human liberty.
Mr. Shannon says that the Democratic Charter was a "hard-won
accomplishment, and it would be a big mistake for the OAS to step away
from it." But Mr. Insulza seems to have another take. He told me that he
would like to see all countries be democracies. Yet when I asked him how
the Castro dictatorship could possibly comply with the charter, he told
me that the charter is a resolution of the general assembly but it is
not necessary for all countries to sign it. One wonders what other
dictatorships in Latin history the secretary-general would have lobbied for.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
O'Grady: Cuba Doesn't Belong in a Democratic Club - WSJ.com (11 May 2009)
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