The Last Summit of the Americas?

The Ninth Summit of the Americas took place in Los Angeles between June 6th and 10th.  Summist are coordinated by the Organization of American States (OAS) which consists of 33 out of the 35 countries of the Americas, together with the government of the host country. Cuba was suspended in 1962, and Nicaragua quit the organization last month.

The Summits of the Americas are institutionalized gatherings of the heads of state and government of the Western Hemisphere where leaders discuss common policy issues and affirm shared values.

Shared values – its major weakness.

When the first Summit was held in Miami in 1994, the world was still celebrating the fall of the Soviet Empire and was focused on the spread of liberal democracy. The hemisphere was governed by liberal democratic governments (except for Cuba) and there was a strong sense that all countries shared common political values and a shared vision of the future.

Today the hemisphere faces a different reality, and this leads me to ask if the Summit’s process and the OAS are fit for the purpose.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez began the shift towards authoritarianism when he won the presidency in 1999. Although Venezuela signed the Democratic Charter of the Americas on September 11, 2001, the Venezuelan delegation to the OAS fought tooth and nail against many of the provisions of the Charter during the negotiations. 

Chavez quickly proceeded to strip Venezuela of its democratic institutions and establish authoritarian rule. His mentor was Fidel Castro, and his vision was of a revolutionary “Bolivarian” Latin America united in opposition to liberal democratic values and seeking to establish authoritarian governments based on the Cuban model. Nicaragua and Bolivia followed on the left, and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro has tried to create an authoritarian government in Brazil on the right.

The result is that a number of states signatory to the Democratic Charter have stopped respecting it. They have established governments that arrest and imprison political opponents, eliminate freedom of expression and free media, and rendered the judiciary as a weak arm of the presidency.

Hence President Biden did not invite Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba to the Summit, although other authoritarian governments such as El Salvador received an invitation. Brazil’s populist president Jair Bolsonaro attended, but several hemispheric governments that continue to be liberal democracies refused to attend since all thirty-five countries were not invited.

The OAS is deeply divided into two camps: the liberal democracies and the authoritarian states. A major problem is that, traditionally, the OAS has been seen by many Latin Americans as a political arm of an interventionist United States. Hence the ambivalence of many in the hemisphere towards the organization.

Can it survive as a viable political institution, or will it continue to be a forum at which countries speak past each other in support of competing and completely incompatible ideologies?

A smaller and streamlined OAS can serve as a forum to discuss global issues that transcend national borders, such as crime, climate change, health (through the Pan American health Organization), narcotrafficking, trade, immigration, the regulation and management of social media, and telecommunications, issues upon which common ground can be found. 

Indeed, twenty leaders signed a comprehensive agreement on migration. But the deep political divisions were obvious to all, leading me to ask if a process of hemispheric dialogue and multilateral cooperation on democratic development and respect for human rights – the two fundamental bases of both the Summits process and the OAS -- can survive when there is such a deep philosophical divide between two large camps.

I believe that the OAS as a political body that aims to promote democratic rule and respect for human rights may no longer be viable. The rise in authoritarian and populist leaders in other hemispheric countries and the support of Caribbean democracies for these regimes cannot lead to real dialogue and change. The OAS should stop flogging a dead horse and concentrate on the lowest common denominators – those issues that can find consensus and leave aside the issues that polarize its membership with no remedy in sight. 

I spent five years at the OAS from 1999 -2004. I know the hard work and tremendous dedication that its staff bring to their jobs, and the deep commitment that they have towards creating a better hemisphere for all its citizens.

But, a good number of member states disrespect the fundamental values of the organization, often making their jobs impossible and make the organization’s stated goals unrealistic.  

Perhaps it is time to suspend the Summits process and transform the OAS into a smaller that brings together liberal democracies to strengthen their institutions, train their young citizens in democratic leadership, and coalesce around a set of values that will allow citizens to meet the challenges of authoritarian populism in their own countries rather than try to convert those in authoritarian states who refuse to listen due to government control and repression. 

One might say that the OAS provides a forum for political dialogue. 

But dialogue requires that both sides to listen to each other. There has never been any evidence that the presidents of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have any intention to listen to their democratic opposition or relinquish place their hold on power through free and fair elections, a viable opposition, and a free media. 

Indeed, Cuba is a close military and security ally of Russia, Venezuela’s security apparatus and Maduro’s praetorian guard is composed of Russian and Cuban military and security personnel, and recently Nicaragua’s Ortega announced that he had invited the Russian military to install itself in that country to carry out a number of functions.

One might question whether a hemispheric consensus on security, democratic development, and human rights can ever occur with the Russian military and security forces occupying three of the hemisphere’s states. One might also question the commitment of other OAS members that support the flagrant disrespect of these three governments for the organization’s fundamental values and their silence with respect to security issues.

It may be time to significantly change the structures and orientation of hemispheric bodies so that there is no pretense about what they are about, waste fewer resources in trying to sustain unrealistic goals, and focus on the possible rather than the illusionary.

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Edición: Ana Ordaz