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OAS OPENS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN CHILE ON SUNDAY; FOREIGN MINISTERS’ DIALOGUE TO FOCUS ON DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE

The Hemisphere’s Foreign Ministers arrive in Santiago, Chile, this weekend, to consider a wide-ranging agenda of issues at the three-day Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly—the thirty third regular session—that will highlight democratic governance in the Americas as a central topic of the ministers’ special “dialogue.”

Democratic governance matters a lot to the people of the Americas, says OAS Assistant Secretary General Luigi R. Einaudi, who explains governance as “the acceptance of a practical working government based on the rule of law”—a definition he offers as a simplified guide.

“In the inter-American system, we have moved to a slightly more formal, slightly more differentiated description of governance, which has its historical roots to some extent in our failures at governance in the past,” Einaudi points out, explaining the Hemisphere’s past as characterized by “a long tradition of militarism, of de facto governments, of authoritarian rule,” in much of Latin America. He does acknowledge that the Caribbean nations have, for the most part, avoided the totalitarian temptation.

Surveying the history of hemispheric efforts to deal with governance in the Americas, the Assistant Secretary General underscores the Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted by the member states on September 11, 2001, saying the Charter has gone much further than Resolution 1080 that was adopted at another OAS General Assembly held in Chile. That landmark resolution had stipulated that the OAS Permanent Council—the second highest OAS forum after the General Assembly—should meet to discuss any interruption of the democratic system in a member state.

But, Einaudi argues, “interruption” was never really defined until the Democratic Charter came along and explicitly identified, notably in Article 3, essential elements of representative democracy to include “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, access to and the exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law, the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based on secret balloting and universal suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people, the pluralistic system of political parties and organizations, and the separation of powers and independence of the branches of government.”

To illustrate other essential elements of democratic governance, the Assistant Secretary General notes that “if the independence of the Supreme Court is taken away by an executive branch, that is an interruption of democratic practice.”

He goes on to mention the struggle against corruption; the subordination of all military institutions or police institutions—security forces in the state—to duly constituted civilian authority. “Then you have within that the elements of what is really a democratic governing structure which must, of course, be put to the test in practice in a way that delivers goods and services to the population as a whole, because it’s very hard for poor people to eat democracy. You’ve got to a have it as a functioning system.”

The Permanent Council Chairman, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the OAS Ambassador Odeen Ishmael, surveys the broad agenda of matters going before the June 8 to 10 Assembly, and underscores his awareness that the citizens of the Americas will be looking to see what will be discussed and what will be the results coming out from this very important forum of the Americas.

He views Haiti as one of the crucial issues “still boiling,” but highlights issues specific to particular regions, indicating that the Caribbean is still “very much concerned about the role of the OAS in relation to developmental issues.”

Not to diminish the important OAS role in promoting democracy he notes, like the Assistant Secretary General, that in the Caribbean democracy has been very stable and has been firmly established for a longer period than in most other regions in this Hemisphere, and thus “our people there are demanding that we see developmental issues addressed.”

One such issue of grave concern is the rise in the level of HIV/AIDS infection in the Caribbean. The Permanent Council Chairman feels the OAS should look at this matter as one of concern because it’s a multilateral problem right now, not only in the Caribbean but in other parts of the world.

Citing security issues, Ishmael underlines the Caribbean and Central American countries perspective on security as multi-dimensional. “And the health issues—HIV/AIDS in particular—are of grave importance in regard to the stabilization of security in the region because if we have high infection of our manpower in this region, especially the productive manpower between ages 18 and 45 as we are having in the Caribbean today, it means that our productive capacity will be severely
diminished and we will not be able to compete internationally because we will not be able to be producing at the level that we need to be competing with the rest of the world. And if the economic power decreases it means our security in the long run will also be affected.”

A meeting of civil society representatives will also be held in Santiago, parallel to the OAS General Assembly, and several of the Foreign Ministers are expected to take part in those discussions.

Endorsing the Assembly’s stress on democratic governance as well, Ambassador Ishmael points to the crucial role of all forces in society, including civil society. “We need to have all players participating in this process so that we can have a form of government within our particular countries which would be very transparent, in which everybody would have a share and involvement.”

The full agenda for the thirty-third OAS General Assembly session in Santiago, Chile from June 8 to 10, can be viewed on the OAS website, at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-117/03