Cuba and the Surreal OAS

Excerpt from "Democracy is Under Siege"
 
by Susan Kaufman Purcell 
 
Even more surrealistic was OAS condemnation of the overthrow of democracy in Honduras only weeks after it had pushed hard to readmit Cuba, a dictatorship that has not held a presidential election in 50 years. The fact that the OAS had earlier added a "democratic clause'' to its charter apparently was not considered relevant to its decision to readmit Cuba.

Nor, according to the OAS, was it relevant to the situation in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez has used the democratic rules of the game to destroy Venezuelan democracy.

Why wasn't the ``democratic clause'' applicable to Cuba and Venezuela? Because, according to the OAS, the lack of democracy in those countries was an ``internal'' issue, and the OAS doesn't intervene in the internal affairs of member countries. Why is the involvement of the military in the internal affairs of Honduras also not an ``internal'' issue?

At the heart of the matter is the determination of the OAS and its members not to allow history to repeat itself. Specifically, the region does not want to return to its sorry past of constant alternations between democratic governments and military regimes.

Susan Kaufman Purcell is director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami.
 
Courtesy of The Miami Herald