The Organization of American States: U.S. Interests and the Western Hemisphere

A big part of an ambassador’s job involves explaining U.S. policy. The Western Hemisphere is vital to U.S. interests and I will talk about that. But I will focus my remarks on explaining why the Organization of American States matters to us and why multilateralism is so important for pursuing our very important agenda with our hemispheric partners.

Less than 3 months after taking office in 2001--and just before attending the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec--President Bush addressed the OAS Permanent Council in Washington, where he laid out the guideposts for what he called "our shared future and the important role the OAS will play in helping to shape it."

On that occasion, the President stated: "We have embraced a collective challenge to build a hemisphere that trades in freedom and grows in prosperity. We have embraced a collective responsibility to break down the barriers of poverty, disease, and ignorance, so individuals may better realize their full, God-given potential."

It is important to underscore here, that this early commitment to working with and through the Inter-American system as the course to advance U.S. foreign policy in the region served as a building block for the immense accomplishments that the OAS has achieved in recent years in addressing the critical issues facing the people of the Western Hemisphere.

The OAS agenda is broad and sometimes daunting. And while much work and significant challenges are ahead, the record of achievement is indeed an impressive one.

Multilateralism works in the Hemipshere…because of its long history. The idea of sovereign, independent nations in the Americas working together for our common good goes back to Simón Bolívar in 1826. And the OAS and its predecessor organizations--the International Union of American Republics and the Pan American Union--trace their roots to 1898, and the current OAS Charter to 1948.

Multilateralism works in the Hemisphere…by staying true to our principles. The OAS has flourished because it has maintained the principles upon which it was founded. Representative democracy, respect for human rights, and the recognition that all states are equal partners in its membership are three founding pillars. Fidel Castro’s dictatorship can’t belong; there are no notorious human rights violators chairing our human rights commission; and it’s one country-one vote at the OAS, no veto power.

Multilateralism works in the Hemisphere…because of our common interests. The nations of the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, understand that we are bound together by geography, history and, often, family, and that we are inevitably destined to grow closer together. Values also bind us. Today, these common interests and values converge on democracy, economic growth through free trade, and good governance, as agreed upon by our leaders at the Summits of the Americas.

We may have our differences on how to reach these common goals or on how to deepen our shared values, but there is no dispute on what our goals and values should be.

And there is no dispute on how the OAS and the Summit of the Americas process contribute to their attainment.

Multi-lateral diplomacy works at the OAS because the entire Western Hemisphere--with Cuba’s lone tyrant the only exception--has embraced democracy as the sine qua non of social, political and economic development, a right of all the peoples, which governments must promote and defend, always and everywhere. There is, in fact, no other region of the world that has such an explicit commitment to democracy.

With the advent of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in September 2001, no OAS member state can be a disinterested spectator to what occurs in our Hemisphere. Any actions that undermine democratic order or that threaten the security and well being of the region are of legitimate concern to all.

Acting under the Democratic Charter, or in the spirit of the Charter, the OAS has helped and is helping those member states where democratic practices or institutions are challenged.

Venezuela
In Venezuela, the OAS undertook months of negotiation with the government, opposition and civil society groups to reach an agreement on a way ahead to overcome the political polarization that led to political upheaval in 2002 and 2003.

This agreement paved the way for the August 15 recall referendum on President Chavez’s rule. President Chavez won the referendum in a process deemed fair by international observers, including the OAS and the Carter Center.

Has Venezuela’s political polarization completely faded away due to these OAS efforts? Certainly not. Political tensions still fester, human rights concerns still abound, and the concentration of power within the Executive branch remains worrisome. But OAS member states remain engaged and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission remains vigilant. We will do all we can to help Venezuelans strengthen their democracy, under the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

Haiti
When President Jean Bertrand Aristide resigned and left Haiti on February 29, the OAS was able to help ensure that the country had a constitutional successor government. Through the OAS, our focus has been on returning the country to full democracy at the earliest possible opportunity. The OAS is currently helping Haitian authorities vet candidates for the national police academy and preparing voter registration rolls, with an eye to elections next year.

Colombia
In Colombia, the OAS plays a critical role by helping the Colombian government institute a transparent, internationally monitored peace process that results in a cessation of hostilities and the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of illegal armed groups as an important means of promoting human rights for all Colombians.

The OAS Mission adds transparency and international accountability to the process. In particular, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is providing advice so that the process is conducted in a manner consistent with international human rights norms.

Election observation is another key element in OAS efforts to strengthen democracy in the Hemisphere. The OAS enjoys a longstanding reputation for impartiality and technical competence in the field of election observation. When the OAS observes an election it ensures that all the rules are followed and does not shrink from pointing out irregularities, when they occur.

Over the last twelve months the OAS fielded election observer missions in Grenada, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador, Ecuador, Venezuela and, soon, in Nicaragua.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is often referred to as "the crown jewel" of the inter-American system. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is headquartered in Washington, DC, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, is based in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The U.S. is the largest financial supporter of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Our continued support for the Commission stems from our firm belief in the unique value and utility of the Commission as a defender of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It provides a forum for persons--whether acting through NGOs or on their own--to seek redress of alleged human rights abuses.

The Commission provides a valuable fact-finding role that no court can duplicate. While it does review cases presented before it like other tribunals, it also has other tools at its disposal that enable it to move quickly to address human rights concerns in the hemisphere.

For example, members of the Commission or its Special Rapporteurs can, and do, make site visits to countries in the hemisphere where abuses of human rights have been reported. It makes country reports. The Commission often requests governments to take precautionary measures pending more detailed reviews of matters. Governments pay attention.

The visits and the press releases and reports issued by the Commission serve to reduce the incidence of human rights’ abuses in the hemisphere by focusing a spotlight on trouble spots and letting governments and victims of abuse know that the Hemisphere and, indeed, the world is watching.

Public safety and national security are critical elements in our hemispheric agenda to preserve democratic order and another area where the OAS has led the way.

In 1999, the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) was established to coordinate member states’ activities against terrorism, including facilitating exchange of information, sharing of best practices and counterterrorism capacity-building through training and technical assistance. CICTE seeks to strengthen border and financial controls, increase cooperation among law enforcement authorities, and address threats to airport, seaport and cyber security.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, OAS member states took the lead with dramatic and effective steps to coordinate the region’s response to fight terror in the Americas. Facing a common threat to our security and prosperity, in June 2002, at the General Assembly in Barbados, the OAS adopted the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism that expands our legal obligations to work together to both prevent and respond to terrorist actions.

More recently, in October 2003 in Mexico City, OAS member states adopted the Declaration on Security in the Americas, establishing a multi-dimensional approach to security and reaffirming our commitment to combat terrorism. This strong political statement builds on existing security frameworks and complements them with a cooperative hemispheric security approach to address both traditional and new threats, concerns and challenges in the region.

On another front to secure our Hemisphere from new and traditional threats is the ongoing effort to combat drug trafficking and drug abuse in the Americas. Leading the charge is the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission. The countries of the Hemisphere have identified five priority lines of action on narcotics -- development of domestic and international law, establishment of an inter-American drug information system, demand reduction, alternative development, and strengthening national drug commissions.

In 1999, a multilateral evaluation mechanism (MEM) was established, as mandated by the Second Summit of the Americas. Under the MEM, experts review individual country submissions--peer review--documenting efforts to combat drug abuse and trafficking; the first full round of evaluations was published in January 2003. The OAS also has produced internationally acclaimed model legislation on precursor chemicals and money laundering control.

In addition the OAS has been a leader in humanitarian mine action programs, in strengthening cooperation mechanisms through confidence and security building measures, and in the adoption of inter-American treaties on illicit trafficking in firearms, transparency in conventional arms acquisitions, and terrorism. By actions and deeds, the work of the inter-American system defines our hemispheric security architecture, as we know it today.

All in all, our security framework today is dynamic and flexible, able not only to address conflicts between states, but the challenges of the 21st century as well.

The OAS has been a pioneer in so many fields. It is the world’s oldest international organization; the 1948 American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man was the first international expression of human rights; the OAS was the first international organization to draft a convention to combat violence against women; the first to condemn the terrorist attacks of September 11; and the first to adopt an international convention against corruption in 1996.

There was a time when speaking of corruption in government was a taboo subject at the OAS. The traditional line was either "official corruption didn’t officially exist" or it was "an internal matter" for countries to deal with.

Well, OAS member states now recognize (and the World Bank backs them up) that corruption is the single, biggest inhibitor to economic growth in the developing world today.

Today, the Hemisphere’s commitment to promoting transparency and fighting corruption is the strongest it’s ever been. You may have read in the newspapers that our recently elected Secretary General resigned office in September in order to defend himself against corruption charges in his native country. The OAS takes this issue very seriously.

With the advent of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, and subsequently its Follow-Up Mechanism, OAS member states are not only expected to fight corruption where it exists, but report on their efforts to other member states as well.

At the most recent Summit of the Americas, in Monterrey, Mexico, OAS member states strengthened the Convention’s purpose by pledging, "to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, those who corrupt them, and their assets."

The days of turning a blind eye to corruption in this Hemisphere are coming to an end--but we are not there yet.

OAS initiatives to advance the Summit of the Americas mandates are new and impressive. The OAS serves as Secretariat for the Summit Process and helps ensure that what leaders have committed to doing results in action.

The Summit of the Americas process breathed new life into the OAS by giving it new mandates. At the First Summit in 1994, no mention of the OAS was made. Ten years later, the OAS is the primary agent for action on Summit of the Americas mandates. One important way the OAS follows through on these commitments is through its cooperation and development programs under the OAS development council, the Inter-American Council for Integral Development.

The Council’s ministerial-level meetings are the best forum for ministers of Education, Labor, Science and Technology, Culture, Tourism, the Environment, and Social Development to come together to implement the Summit commitments of their Heads of State and Government, as well as to develop themes for future Summits.

The declarations and action plans issued by ministers at CIDI meetings become the core set of instructions for OAS development programs and projects.

In education, we are concentrating in supporting ongoing teacher education and training to improve the quality of classroom education. The OAS created the Education Portal of the Americas to help education and other professionals take on-line classes to perfect their skills.

After a study revealed that young people in many parts of the hemisphere had serious questions about the value of democracy, a new Inter-American Program on Democratic Values, Education for Peace and Human Rights was developed and will begin to appear in school curriculums all over the hemisphere in coming years.

In the area of social development and labor, the OAS has developed a program to assist in the creation and development of small and micro-enterprises, including how to organize associations of these small companies so they can pool resources to better position themselves to access wider markets.

In the trade area, the OAS has gone from training negotiators to helping member states--especially the smaller ones--prepare action plans to be presented to donors on the areas that these countries need in order to expand and improve their competitiveness in the world market opened by the free trade agreements.

In science and technology, the upcoming ministerial to be held next week in Lima, Peru, will adopt a visionary action plan with 15 different initiatives that range from building local engineering capacity to promoting e-government, just to cite 2 projects intended to forge collaborative networks throughout the Hemisphere.

The OAS tourism program helps small hotels, which dot the entire Caribbean and most of Central America, to establish websites and other tourism services. Tourism, for some member states, is a very significant source of income and employment for their citizens.

The OAS has implemented projects on disaster mitigation, environment, border area development and watershed management.

The key here is leverage. OAS funds serve as the seed capital that leverages external funds from many partners ranging from OAS observer countries, international financial institutions, as well as private sector donors.

What we have here is an OAS poised to tackle the substantive problems facing the nations of the Western Hemisphere. It is critical that the OAS remain engaged and proactive. And from the U.S. standpoint, this means continuing to ensure that multilateralism in the Americas is not pursuing the lowest common denominator but, rather, pressing the OAS to practical, achievable objectives that produce tangible, measurable results.

To that end, the United States is firmly committed to working and strengthening the OAS and remains its largest contributor. We pay almost 60% of the OAS operating budget and contribute an additional $30 million annually to specific OAS activities, such as development projects, fighting drugs and terrorism, and electoral observation missions, to name but a few.

Over the last decade, the Hemisphere, and indeed the OAS, have made enormous progress, but we have not, however, managed to erase the legacy of decades of poverty, corruption, and, even, wrong-headed policies.

Today, the Hemisphere is facing very serious challenges. Economies in the region are not growing fast enough to generate sufficient jobs for growing populations, let alone deal with extreme poverty. Corruption and inefficiency have stunted development and spawned popular discontent. All of this has combined to give rise to questions concerning the value of democracy in the Americas.

Surmounting these challenges will require leadership and political will on the part of individual hemispheric leaders. The OAS provides significant value-added and can play an important catalytic role in these efforts.

What are the specific challenges here for the OAS? They include:

• Applying the Inter-American Democratic Charter to all the countries of the hemisphere, leaving no country out;
• Looking for ways to bolster the effectiveness of OAS Electoral Observation Missions;
• OAS support in strengthening institutions in each country to complement the march to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which is the key to jobs, growth and fighting poverty effectively;
• Finding additional ways to address the post-9/11 security threats from internal and home-grown terrorists, and international crime;
• Helping countries deal effectively with burgeoning domestic crime rates at a time of high citizen insecurity; and
• Implementing the new growth, investing in people and governance mandates that emerged from this year’s Special Summit of the Americas.
• The U.S. stands ready to work side by side with our partners in the region, and with and through the OAS, to overcome these challenges.

As Secretary of State Colin Powell said at the OAS General Assembly in Quito, Ecuador last June: "We must show our people that freedom works, and that political and economic freedom work together."

I offer to you, the delegates to this Eighth Model OAS, my best wishes for a constructive discussion of the important issues on the agenda, and to the organizers, my heartfelt gratitude for inviting me this morning, and to all of you, my congratulations for giving this Model OAS your very best effort.

Thank you.