MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Washington Post looks at Colombia and the OAS

It can be said without much margin of error that The Washington Post, or a summary of its main points, is on the breakfast table of the most powerful man on earth, the elected resident of the White House.

The same can be said for those members of the US Congress who play a leading role in the decision making process, be it in domestic affairs or foreign policy.

That is why it is most significant that with only two days difference The Washington Post has two editorials referred to Latinamerican affairs: one of them in support of the free trade agreement with Colombia, stalled in the US congress and the second referred to the election of the Organization of American States, OAS, Secretary General, at the end of March.

The current holder of the post Jose Miguel Insulza from Chile aspires to be re-elected. However The Washington Post, based on recent events, mainly the Honduras situation, believes the US should not support him for “frequently ignoring the OAS democratic charter”.

Time to trade

Monday February 8

In recent days it has sometimes looked as if the political logjam over trade might finally be about to break. In a State of the Union address centred on job creation, President Obama declared a National Export Initiative to double US exports in five years. In support of this goal, he spoke encouragingly about “strengthening” trade relations with South Korea, Panama and Colombia -- each of which has a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the United States pending congressional approval. Could it be that the president was finally ready to take on labour unions and other Democratic interest groups that have been blocking them? The situation appeared even more hopeful on Wednesday: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner responded “absolutely” when a member of Congress asked whether the administration wanted to get them through by year's end.

Or so it seemed. Actually, the secretary had been misinterpreted because of some cross talk at the hearing, as his department quickly explained in a news release afterward. The Obama administration's position remains what it was: It wants to adjust the deals, in cooperation with Capitol Hill, and “move forward” with them, but there's no deadline. And so, despite the promising talk, the future of the FTAs remains uncertain. Panama's might still come to a vote this year, which would be good, but it is the smallest and least controversial of the three. A failure to pass the Colombia and Korea agreements would be bad news for American companies and American workers.

The administration's export initiative offers more coordinated government support to firms trying to sell overseas. But when it comes to creating export-related jobs in bunches, the crucial thing is to remove tariff barriers wherever possible and as fast as possible. While America dithers, the European Union is pursuing trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and other nations; this threatens to leave the United States at a disadvantage.

No doubt trade is a tough sell in an election year, given the strength of its opponents on the Hill. But on Colombia, the case for a deal is especially strong -- and the case against one especially weak. “This administration will pursue trade agreements that are balanced [and] ambitious and improve market access for U.S. workers, firms, farmers and ranchers,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Thursday. This is a perfect description of the Colombia FTA: It would simply give the vast majority of U.S. goods the same duty-free access to that large, fast-growing Andean nation that Colombian products already enjoy in the United States. Even as it helps U.S. companies, the agreement would shore up a strong U.S. ally in a troubled region.

Since there is no economic argument against free trade with Colombia, opponents have had to come up with a political one -- namely, that the FTA would reward a government with a poor human rights record. In truth, Colombia has made vast progress since the bloody days of its past. Over the past four years, murders of trade-union members, the top concern of U.S. human rights activists, have declined from 60 per year to 28. Trade-unionists are actually six times less likely than other Colombians to be victims of homicide, according to a new study by Daniel Mejía and Maria José Uribe from the University of the Andes in Bogotá.

Are opponents of the FTA clinging to their arguments despite overwhelming contrary evidence? Is free trade with Colombia in the U.S. interest? And has the president indulged protectionists in Congress long enough? To all three questions, the answer is: “Absolutely”.-

Mr. Obama should press for change at the OAS

Wednesday February 10

Since its founding in 1948, the Organization of American States has defined its two top purposes as ”to strengthen peace and security“ and ”to consolidate and promote representative democracy.” On the second count, it is failing.

Despite the adoption in 2001 of a “democracy charter”, the OAS has done little to stem what has been a steady erosion of free elections, free press and free assembly in Latin America during the past five years. When Honduras's president was arrested and dispatched to exile by the military last year, the organization was aggressive but clumsy -- and ended up making a democratic outcome harder to achieve. In the case of countries where democracy has been systematically dismantled by a new generation of authoritarian leaders, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, the OAS has failed to act at all.

The embodiment of this dysfunction has been OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza A Chilean socialist, Mr. Insulza has unabashedly catered to the region's left-wing leaders -- which has frequently meant ignoring the democratic charter. Last year, he pushed for the lifting of Cuba's ban from the OAS, even though there has been no liberalization of the Castro dictatorship. When Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez launched a campaign against elected leaders of his opposition, stripping them of power and launching criminal investigations, Mr. Insulza refused to intervene, claiming the OAS “cannot be involved in issues of internal order of member states”. Yet when leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya tried to change his own country's internal order by illegally promoting a constitutional referendum, Mr. Insulza supported him, even offering to dispatch observers.

Now Mr. Insulza is up for re-election; a vote is scheduled for late next month. The United States, which supplies 60 percent of the funding for the OAS's general secretariat -- $47 million in 2009 -- ought to have a prime interest in replacing him with someone who will defend democracy. Yet the Obama administration is paralyzed: It has yet to make a decision about whether to support a new term for Mr. Insulza. Partly because of that waffling, no alternative candidate has emerged.

There is some reason for this. Five years ago, an effort by the Bush administration to promote a couple of friendly candidates backfired, and a U.S.-backed nominee this year would surely trigger pushback by Mr. Chávez and his allies, and by centre-left governments such as Brazil. But the potential resistance to Mr. Insulza is growing. Panama, Colombia, Canada and Mexico could be enlisted in the search for an alternative. Even Chile's new centre-right president has so far declined to endorse his compatriot.

At a minimum, the administration should embrace the recommendation of a recent Senate report on the OAS drawn up by the staff of Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.). It calls for the OAS permanent council to require that Mr. Insulza make a presentation about his proposals and priorities for a second term, and for any other candidate who steps forward to offer such a presentation as well.

The United States should make clear that it will not support any secretary general whose platform on democracy issues is inadequate. Congress should meanwhile consider whether the United States should continue to provide the bulk of the funding for the OAS when it fails to live by its own charter.