U.S. changes stance on Cuba's inclusion in OAS
The United States says it's time Cuba be let back in to the Organization
of American States -- and abide by its democratic principles.
By FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com
Cuba's decades-old suspension from the Organization of American States
appears to be coming to an end.
As more countries clamor to lift the communist country's 1962 suspension
from the hemispheric group, the U.S. State Department threw a curve ball
at the debate late Tuesday by submitting a new proposal that would
eventually allow Cuba back to the OAS -- as long as Havana abides by the
organization's democratic principles.
The OAS meets Wednesday in Washington to review three proposals
submitted that ultimately reach the same goal: an end to Cuba's suspension.
Just how the suspension should be lifted will be taken up at the group's
permanent council meeting in Washington, where they will hammer out a
final agenda for thegeneral assembly next week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
The council will decide which of the three proposals submitted that lift
Cuba's suspension will be voted on in Honduras.
Nicaragua submitted a resolution calling for Cuba's suspension to be
lifted because it is an ''unjust affront to the OAS'' that ''violates
international law.'' Honduras also submitted a resolution in more
straight-forward language asking for sanctions against Cuba to be
lifted, according to a draft agenda of the meeting.
At the last minute, Costa Rica's proposal to study the issue before one
of the OAS' legal commissions was replaced by one from the U.S. State
Department.
''Any effort to admit Cuba into the OAS is really in Cuba's hands,''
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in remarks to Congress last
week. ``They have to be willing to take the concrete steps necessary to
meet those principles. We've been very clear about that --move toward
democracy, release political prisoners, respect fundamental freedoms.
That is what it means to be a member of the OAS.''
The U.S. proposal calls for the OAS to ''initiate a dialogue'' with Cuba
about its eventual reintegration to the hemispheric body -- ``consistent
with principles and values of the OAS charter, the InterAmerican
Democratic charter and other instruments.''
If approved, the OAS Permanent Council would start those talks, and
report back in a year.
In the bid submitted Tuesday evening by Washington's deputy
representative to the OAS, W. Lewis Amselem, Washington acknowledged
that ``some of the circumstances since Cuba's suspension from full
participation in the OAS may have changed.''
Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962, officially because of its
alliance with the Soviet Union. But as more leftists were elected to
lead Latin American nations in the past years, pressure increased to
lift the suspension.
The OAS makes its decisions by consensus, and after last month's Summit
of the Americas conference in Trinidad, it became increasingly clear
that Washington did not have the support to continue to pressure for
Cuba's exclusion.
At the same time, Cuban-American members of Congress were outraged that
Cuba could be let back in to a group that in 2001 passed the
InterAmerican Democratic Charter -- a rule calling for all its members
to be democratic.
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey moved to cut the organization's funding.
''Ultimately, Cuba's reintegration into the OAS cannot be done at the
push of a button,'' said a State Department spokesperson. ``If it
happens, it will be the result of a deliberate and well considered
process that will depend more on what Cuba is prepared to do, than it
will on what concessions the OAS is prepared to make.''
For all the flap, Cuba says it isn't interested.
''One way or another, the OAS is totally anachronistic; it serves other
interests, and we feel that our path, Cuba's path, is one of Latin
American and Caribbean integration, without a presence from outside the
continent,'' Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez was quoted as
saying in Tuesday's Cuban newspapers.
Cuba, he said, is ``working for our peoples and not for the empire.''
U.S. changes stance on Cuba's inclusion in OAS - Breaking News -
MiamiHerald.com (27 May 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1067519.html
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