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At George Washington University, Secretary General Highlights Range of Tasks Carried out by the OAS for the Benefit of the Citizens of the Americas

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, today highlighted the broad range of tasks carried out by the hemispheric institution for the benefit of the citizens of the Americas, in a presentation to students at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

“The OAS is about many things,” said the Secretary General, “it is a political organization and therefore deals with issues of peace, democracy, with conflicts and crises in its member countries.” “But we do many other things as well,” said the leader of the hemispheric institution, “we observe elections, we have been been present at more than 105 elections during my period as Secretary General; we have a very active Commission on Human Rights; we work to improve governance in the region; we have a follow-up mechanism for the Convention against Corruption, and an Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission; and a Scholarship Program that has expanded dramatically in the last ten years.”

In his talk with the university students, Secretary General Insulza highlighted that the Seventh Summit of the Americas, which will take place on April 10 and 11 in Panama, will be a special meeting. “Cuba is going for the first time to the Summit of the Americas. We think that is a major achievement, we take pride in saying we changed the Cuba policy six years ago at the OAS. We decided to lift all sanctions against Cuba, and to open the way so that Cuba will return to the Inter-American system and I hope that will happen,” said the OAS leader.

The Secretary General explained that the nature of the Organization lies in three concepts: multilateralism, inclusiveness, and democracy. With respect to the first, he said “the OAS is an organization of sovereign countries; it’s not a supranational institution, but one of 35 independent countries, each with its own prerogatives.” In terms of the second concept, he recalled that article four of the OAS Charter “of which we are very proud,” stipulates that any American country that signs the Charter is a member of the OAS. Finally, he added that the OAS is an institution made up of democratically elected governments, ruled by democratic norms and that counts among its pillars the promotion of democracy.

On that basis, continued the Secretary General, the institution faces the reality that these three values – multilateralism, inclusiveness, and democracy – are not always compatible. Therefore, he said “the big challenge for the Organization is to keep its faith in all these issues and search for the ways to solve problems and try to have a democratic hemisphere.”

Following his presentation, the Secretary General held a dialogue with the moderator of the event and Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, Cynthia McClintock, and took part in a question and answer session with the students.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-117/15