MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Vargas Llosa: OAS is “useless, inefficient and at times dangerous”

The Peruvian writer, a brilliant pen and a caustic tongue

“If there is an organization in Latinamerica which is inefficient, useless and at times dangerous precisely because of its inefficiency, it’s the Organization of American States, OAS”, said Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.

In an interview with Chile’s El Mercurio, Vargas Llosa said that “OAS is an office that must be radically transformed if we want it to become useful”.

Currently “it’s no use, it’s an organization that costs money, to which many resources and time are dedicated but it simply does not deliver, it’s useless”, added the writer, one of the leading pens of Spanish language who likes to incursion into politics.

Vargas Llosa offered as an example the “futility of OAS” in the recent events of Honduras, following the ousting of legitimate president Manuel Zelaya.

“OAS at no moment presented minimum facilities. Finally it was Costa Rican president Oscar Arias who came up with a formula, more or less common sense, and the operational steps to move away from the impasse”, said Vargas Llosa.

He admitted that the Honduran situation is “complex since behind is the process of defending democracy against someone who from inside (Zelaya) was intent in destroying it”.

But it all changes from the moment the military get involved and “a president legitimately voted to office is ousted and flown out of the country. This obviously is in no way acceptable”, emphasized the Peruvian writer.

Vargas Llosa also had harsh words for Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and his re-re-election plan.

“I think there’s a sacred democratic principle: you can’t change the rules of the game to favour and benefit you. If you reach office legitimately according to certain rules, any changes should be made for the future”.

Finally he reiterated his criticism of Venezuela president Hugo Chavez and called on the “democratic community to support those in Venezuela who are fighting with great courage and personal risk for the country to return to the path of democracy”.

“Chavez is but an aspiring dictator, his ambition is to become a Latinamerican caudillo. His Bolivarian dream is delirious, megalomaniac and above all absurd”, he underlined comparing it with Cuba, “a very tragic case because there the dictatorship seems to have sterilized the resistance spirit in great sectors of the population”, concluded Vargas Llosa.