MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mexico favors creation of new body to replace OAS

“It is a great task for good diplomats and politicians,” Mexico's President said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has launched the idea to create a new body that would replace the current Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS).

“The proposal is neither more nor less than to build something similar to the European Union, but attached to our history, our reality and our identities,” said López Obrador Saturday during the meeting of foreign ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) of which Mexico is president pro tempore.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro has been harshly criticized for his management, which AMLO considers to be “one of the worst” in the history of the organization. “In that spirit, the replacement of the OAS by a truly autonomous body, not a lackey of anyone, but a mediator, at the request and acceptance of the parties in conflict, should not be ruled out,” said López Obrador.

“This is a complex issue that requires a new political and economic vision,” he added.

“It is a great task for good diplomats and politicians,” he went on.

The proposal of the Mexican president comes in the midst of Cuba's rejection of the sanctions announced on Thursday by the United States, among others, against senior Cuban officials for the “repression” of recent popular demonstrations on the island.

“Washington has never stopped carrying out open or covert operations against the independent countries located south of the Rio Grande,” said AMLO on the occasion of Simón Bolívar's 238th birthday.

”Cuba, the country which for more than half a century has asserted its independence, politically confronting the United States (...) having resisted 62 years without submission, is quite a feat,“ said López Obrador.

Bolivian President Luis Arce was quick to support the new initiative. ”We echo the words of our brother, López Obrador, in the idea of replacing the OAS with another truly autonomous body which expresses regional balances, respects the self-determination of the peoples and does not allow for the hegemony of a single State,” Arce said.

The OAS was severely attacked Arce and former Bolivian President Evo Morales for the local events after the October 20, 2019 elections and the ensuing unrest which led Morales to resign and flee the country forst to Mexico and then to Argentina after Alberto Fernández took office on December 10, that year.

Morales has always spoken of a coup d'état and the actions or inactions of the Uruguayan Almagro are said to have played a key role in the outcome of those events.

Morales said in his radio show Sunday that the only fraud in the October elections was the one committed the OAS and its reports.

Bolivian Justice Minister Iván Lima also announced this past weekend that his country intended to file charges against Almagro before the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) and other international courts for the “abuses” he committed during post-election conflicts.