A Day Without the OAS
By Alan Stoga*

Costa Rica’s former President, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, did the hemisphere a favor when he resigned from the presidency of the Organizational of American States to return home to face corruption charges. His departure has produced a scramble among countries and candidates to find a successor in a process that makes the selection of sites for the Olympics seem transparent.

However, the embarrassment of losing a newly minted OAS president to corruption is far outweighed by the opportunity his departure offers to do what should have been done years ago: shut down the OAS.

Founded in 1948, the OAS was re-energized by President Kennedy as part of his initiative to engage Latin America. However, the OAS has long since dropped off the hemispheric radar screen. The real political business of the Americas is either conducted bilaterally or through the growing proliferation of regional and sub-regional summits. As intra-hemispheric trade has become more important, NAFTA and, especially, Mercosur are also becoming forums where presidents and ministers discuss political issues that might otherwise gravitate to the OAS.

Nor has the OAS distinguished itself in its crisis management role. The organization has been effectively absent from major regional political crises, including last year’s fighting in Haiti, the struggle between the Venezuelan democratic opposition and President Chavez, and the recent confrontation between Colombia and Venezuela that appears to have been defused by President Lula, with the curious support of Fidel Castro. The notion of calling the OAS—instead of the State Department, Planalto, or one of the other centers of real power—is unlikely ever to occur to an embattled president or opposition leader.

The OAS, for better or for worse, is impotent and, even worse, irrelevant.

Unfortunately, like the rest of the international political infrastructure that was largely built for a different era, a combination of inertia and bureaucratic self-dealing keep the OAS alive. Its Washington headquarters are a marvelous posting for ambassadors in need of a quiet assignment or for ex-leaders who lack the stature to snare a more prestigious UN job. And it offers a convenient excuse for governmental inaction: the easiest way to assure that an initiative will die is to send it to the OAS.

Defenders of the organization point to the Democratic Charter that was promulgated a few years ago as a signal accomplishment of the OAS. The Charter commits all its signatories to democratic processes and allows for sanctions against those who violate its processes. The only problem is that democracy is demonstrably weaker today than before the Charter was signed in 2001. Today governments are far more likely to be successfully challenged by mobs in the streets, as has happened in Argentina, Bolivia, and elsewhere. Non-establishment politicians, NGO leaders, judges, and journalists are more at risk, in more countries, than they have been in at least a decade. And, every popular survey shows that people are increasingly skeptical about democracy and its benefits.

The point is simple: the OAS increasingly exists and operates in a world that is divorced from reality.

Put the question differently: would anyone—other than its bureaucrats who draw handsome international salaries—notice if the OAS disappeared tomorrow? Almost certainly not, is the only imaginable answer.

Obviously, the Americas need an effective political architecture to address issues like terrorism, environment, money laundering, drugs, and migration or to mobilize resources to confront pandemics like HIV/AIDS, Avian flu, tuberculosis, etc. In an era of globalization, national security threats have multiplied and been transformed, yet we rely on organizations like the OAS that were built during the Cold War for very different purposes.

The irony is that one of the biggest supporters of the OAS is the Bush Administration, which should recognize an ineffective, purposeless bureaucracy when it sees one. However, the explanation is simple. On the one hand, the U.S. government suffers from as much bureaucratic inertia as anyone else; on the other hand, commitment to the OAS is a convenient excuse for lack of serious engagement with Latin America.

Of course, we might get lucky. The current debate over a successor to the ill fated Rodriguez could drag on endlessly, with Mexicans fighting Chileans fighting Central Americans for the honor of leading what has become an invisible, irrelevant organization to most people in the Americas. In the meanwhile, even the bureaucrats might get bored and the last one to leave could simply turn out the lights. No one would notice.

That fantasy is unlikely to happen. But it is still possible that an extended debate over who should lead the OAS could transform itself into a debate over whether we need an OAS and, if so, what it should do.

*Alan Stoga is president, Zemi Communications