OAS waffles on Cuba readmission issue

Several Latin American leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez have pushed for the readmission of Cuba into the Organization of American States (OAS). Yet representatives at Wednesday’s OAS Permanent Council meeting couldn’t unite on a proposal for Cuba’s possible return.

During the reported three hours of debate, Nicaragua and Honduras introduced separate plans to permit Cuba to return to the OAS since the country was shunned in 1962. In a surprise move, the U.S. put on the table its own resolution inviting Cuba "to initiate a dialogue… regarding its eventual reintegration into the inter-American system consistent with the principles of sovereignty, independence, non-intervention, democracy." (The State Department emphasized that the proposal meant “no change of policy” to Cuba though that didn’t stop Cuban-American legislators from blasting the move).

In the end, the council agreed to create a working group to present a single recommendation at the OAS General Assembly meeting next week in Honduras. It may be seen a step towards progress by OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza who remarked in March:

Insulza, in an interview in Medellin, Colombia, said the 1962 OAS resolution that banned Cuba from the Washington-based assembly because of its links to communism, China and the Soviet Union no longer makes sense.

“One of the countries has disappeared and the other is buying a lot of U.S. Treasuries,” Insulza said at the Inter- American Development Bank’s annual meeting. “Please, if they’re going to be excluded, let’s come up with some better criteria.”

Image- radiojamaica.com
Online Sources- Miami Herald, Reuters, Bloomberg, El Universal, U.S. State Department