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OAS Secretary General Urges the Hemisphere to Take a More Active Role in the Global Agenda

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, delivered a lecture on Monday at the Forum "Mexico in the World: Diagnostics and Prospects of International Relations," organized by the Mexican Senate and the Secretariat for Foreign Affairs (SRE), during which he analyzed the advantages, limitations and strategies in giving the Americas a greater role in the global agenda.

In his presentation, entitled "Challenges and perspectives of hemispheric relations," Secretary General Insulza analyzed the evolution of the international political environment, and the expectations and new challenges faced with the end of the Cold War 25 years ago. "Many analysts of the international reality that had put the bipolar confrontation at the center of their explanations, began to see an adversarial relationship between large economies of the developed world as one of economic competition, in which military confrontation was replaced by the competition for larger economic spaces, financial standing and technological dominance," he explained.

The OAS leader said that one of the legacies of the Cold War was an international system that, although it no longer had clear hegemonies, "has endured and even become stronger." "One of its main features is the composition of this system by national states, with their own objectives and defenders," he said. When that system experiences uncertain times, he continued, "the best interest of all should be the preservation of the global order, but if that world is constituted by individual states, what takes priority in reality is the rhetoric of national interest."

The leader of the hemispheric institution analyzed the contemporary reality by stating that "international politics are conditioned by those who have the resources, by regional or global powers who aim to protect their own interests and seek alliances to do so at the lowest possible cost." In this regard he stated that the intermediate countries, which constitute the majority of this region, "are those that require the international system for their survival and development, but do not have the strength to influence it by themselves, so they should look do it through the partnerships and resources provided by multilateralism."

Speaking at the Antigua Casona de Xicoténcatl in Mexico City, Secretary General Insulza discussed issues related to violence and terrorism, globalization and technological advances that currently shape the international arena and said that "the reality in which we make international policy is very different from that of 25 years ago," and is in this new context that" we must place the challenges of our hemisphere in the coming years." He further spoke of the special advantages that the region has to play an important role in the context of international relations. "We share a common interest in preventing the hemisphere from being affected by the wars and conflicts affecting other regions of the world. We are the region that has been most far removed from the conflicts that characterize the international situation," he said.

"Latin America and the Caribbean have important strengths that allow them to aspire to a greater role on the world stage, including our natural resources. We are a hemisphere with surplus of food and energy; in the recent decade we have increased our political stability and have had better overall economic growth," he said, stressing that in the era of globalization it is necessary to "be more open to the world." "We are still insufficiently integrated internationally, which, coupled with the weaknesses of our own integration, makes us less competitive; greater integration into the global reality brings risks, but the challenge is to achieve presence, which means to clearly define our national interests and foreign policy priorities."

From the perspective of the OAS Secretary General those priorities and strategies of the role that the hemisphere should play at the international level are framed in four major areas. "The first is that our regional policy should consolidate us as a hemisphere of peace, and that includes the conflicts that still remain, such as the internal conflict in Colombia," he said, and encouraged strengthening instruments such as the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and making progress on issues such as the resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, which will "eliminate a source of unnecessary stress that we inherited from the Cold War." He also urged action to promote and contribute to United Nations peacekeeping efforts and to reduce internal violence in the countries of the hemisphere. "We will not be credible as a region of peace if in one country of Central America twice the number of people die every day from violence as in Iraq or Syria," he said.

He also included in this strategy a regional policy that aims "to strengthen the processes of integration and link ourselves with one other," and to have a region that "continues to open itself to the world, fully maintaining its existing hemispheric condition." "Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and North America make up 85% of total world trade. The policy that many countries have of seeking trade and investment agreements with them is not only desirable but also essential for them to grow in a global context," he said. In that regard, he stressed the importance of strengthening relations with the greatest power in the hemisphere, because "it would be absurd to hope for greater global integration without further developing a mature relationship with the leading power in our hemisphere. On the contrary, rather than encourage the naive dream of replacing the hemispheric relationship, we must strengthen our ties based on trade, investment, migration and security and on the values of democracy, freedom and human rights that we share."

Secretary General Insulza referred in his third point to the need to protect natural resources and "rationally share them for the benefit of all our peoples; we are the hemisphere that is most rapidly deteriorating due to the effects of climate change, deforestation, and the richness of our nature imposes enormous challenges," he said.

Finally, he stressed the need to "strengthen our national states as a prerequisite for our development." To do this, he said, Latin America and the Caribbean share three major problems: crime, inequality, and the internal polarization. "People nowadays are not attracted by claims of nationality which do not provide for the satisfaction of their basic needs," he insisted, and ended by saying that "projecting ourselves to the world as divided, and fractured, as is the case in many nations of the Americas is not the best condition to address international developments as we should."

The forum on foreign policy takes place from February 16 to 19 in the capital of Mexico with the aim of analyzing the international relations of the country from a multidisciplinary approach. The Secretary General's conference was attended by legislators, ambassadors, academics, civil servants, diplomats, students and representatives of civil society.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-043/15