The OAS has just held its fifty-second general assembly and once again the results of the meeting have fallen far short of expectations. Because for the majority of the citizens of the Americas, the governing body of regional policy should have greater influence in confronting the challenges facing Latin America.
For many, for example, it is incomprehensible that, being the only regional body that has created a mechanism for the defense of democracy called the Hemispheric Democratic Charter, there are nations that flagrantly violate it without the body intervening. After all most Latin Americans are soccer players and expect the referee to intervene when a player is offside or reaches in to score a goal or deliberately pushes an opponent out of the game.
Worse yet, every day we read that the situation in Haiti has deteriorated to the point where local and transnational organized crime rules. This, in addition to constituting a clear threat to the stability of the Caribbean, endangers both the democratic and economic advances achieved with so much sacrifice by the Dominican Republic. And in the face of this tragedy, the OAS still does not respond to a request from the lifeless government of that nation that requests a multinational intervention force. And while it is true that the OAS Charter does not allow it to arm armies for the preservation or maintenance of peace, it does allow it to arm the strategy and go to the UN as an emergency matter to request this resource.
From a financial point of view, it is a bankrupt institution because not only are there many members who do not pay their dues on time and properly, but there are also others who receive support from the organization without fulfilling their financial duties.
Politically it is paralyzed because since fundamental decisions have to be made by qualified majority, it is impossible to adopt reforms without building a prior consensus. In this area of polarization that the world is experiencing, many members of the OAS were conquered by the ideology of the Sao Paulo Forum to serve as accomplices to totalitarian governments such as Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia.
In summary, the institution urgently requires a restructuring that allows it to improve its finances; reduce bureaucracy and increase the capacity to provide services to the member states directly in order to assist them in two tasks that must be continental. The first is to strengthen law enforcement institutions and the second is to foster the competitiveness of economies by supporting digitization. This last exercise should begin with the electoral observation missions that should be supported by digital technological advances to improve the organization’s capacity to detect fraud and support electoral authorities.
What the organization cannot afford is inertia if it aspires to continue being the political forum par excellence in the region and to preserve and expand its two great achievements, which are the continental system for the defense of human rights via the IACHR and the provision of health services via PAHO.
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