MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Correa says OAS should have been disarticulated in 1982 when the Malvinas war

Ecuadorean president: region’s problems should be discussed in the region not in Washington

Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa again questioned the existence of the Organization of American States, OAS, which should have been disarticulated in 1982 during the Falklands/Malvinas war and insisted that the region’s problems “should be discussed in the region and not in Washington”.

Correa who is in Caracas for the CELAC (Community of Latinamerican and Caribbean States) summit said that the inter-American system has “many shortcomings, not from the current administration (of Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza) but from its own structure”, the Organization of American States.

He went on to say that in 1982 during the Malvinas war when Argentina and the UK clashed over the South Atlantic Islands “OAS should have come to an end because the Inter-American Reciprocal Protection Treaty, TIAR, was violated when Washington did not support a member country, but rather an outer region country”.

“We need deep changes to the current system and build a Latinamerican model, where we can discuss the problems of the region in the region and not in Washington and according to our own circumstances”, underlined the Ecuadorean president.

Correa pointed out the paradox of the OAS Inter American Human Rights Commission, CIDH which was born “to defend citizens from dictatorships and now those same groups which supported the dictatorships are the ones accusing progressive governments that are changing the previous precarious situation of Latinamerica”.

Correa was referring to his ongoing dispute with the owners of the Ecuadorean media whom he accuses of manipulating public opinion and has combated them with very strict and controversial legislation which has led to appeals to the CIDH.

Finally the Ecuadorean president regretted that the “OAS historically has served the interests of the United States to the extent that Cuba was expulsed because of the Revolution, but nothing of the sort happened in Chile when the bloody coup and dictatorship of General Pinochet”.

Likewise President Hugo Chavez anticipated that Celac would become a ‘pole of power’ which with time will leave behind the ‘old and worn out OAS’.

“Celac must become a political union and on that political union we shall build a great pole of power in the XXI century”, promised Chavez who is hosting leaders from 33 Latinamerican and Caribbean countries.

Chavez compared the new organization with OAS which brings together all the countries of the three Americans with the exception of Cuba, kicked out in 1962.

“OAS is the ancient regime, a space manipulated and dominated by the US, crippled by the old” while Celac is born “with a new spirit like a weapon of political, economic and social integration”.

However he was also cautious saying that ruling or prevailing ideologies in the region’s different countries have nothing to do with Celac.

“Forget ideologies, Celac is an independent process, independent from Cuban Socialism, from Venezuelan Socialism or from the ideology that the Brazilian government might be promoting, or the governments from Colombia, Nicaragua…”