OAS Push to Readmit Cuba Has Menendez Eyeing Funding

[Mika]

OAS Push to Readmit Cuba Has Menendez Eyeing Funding
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003119332

After a 47-year suspension of relations, the new secretary-general of the Organization of American States wants to invite Cuba back into the fold. But Castro foes on the Hill are warning the group’s chief that such a move could cost him.

“As the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign assistance, I would expect the U.S. Congress to ask, ‘Should we continue to pay 60 percent of the budget of an institution that just disregarded democratic principles as a fundamental part of its charter?’ ” said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Congress appropriated $55.8 million for the OAS in fiscal 2009, and President Obama wants roughly the same amount for the group in fiscal 2010.

The OAS, one of the oldest international bodies in the world, expelled Fidel Castro-led Cuba from its ranks in 1962 after passing a resolution that declared “Marxist-Leninism” incompatible with the group’s democratic principles.

Although the Castro brothers — Fidel and his brother Raul — remain in power in Havana and the OAS found “permanent and systematic violations of the fundamental rights of Cuban citizens” in its most recent annual report, OAS chief Jose Insulza says he wants to include Cuba for the sake of democratization.

“Engagement and dialogue are better to bring countries into democracy, not segregation or separation,” he said at the Council of the Americas summit in mid-May.

He had his own warning for U.S. lawmakers if, contrary to Latin American hopes, Obama does not change U.S. policy toward Cuba: Latin America “has already distanced itself from the U.S. and may distance even more if the promise of a new beginning isn’t fulfilled,” Insulza said.

The OAS chief says he wants to see the Cuba issue debated when the 34 member nations of the OAS convene for the organization’s 39th annual assembly June 2 in Honduras. He called the 1962 resolution “outdated” for its Cold War references and said Cuba has not even been mentioned at the last 11 assemblies.

Menendez thinks the OAS should keep it that way.

“What message are we sending to the rest of the hemisphere — that it’s OK to go backwards?” Menendez said.

But the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, doesn’t agree. Lugar recently asked Obama to support the OAS’s discussions on Cuban membership.

“While it is too early to allow Cuba back into the OAS outright ... a lifting of U.S. opposition to discussion in how the OAS should engage Cuba would signal a preference for consultation, partnership and pragmatism,” Lugar wrote in a March 30 letter to the president.

However the debate goes, it might be all be for naught: Fidel Castro says he’s not interested in joining the OAS.

In his most recent column condemning the OAS human rights report, the ailing former Cuban leader called the OAS “rotten” and a “shameless institution.”

[Judi Lynn]

1. Menendez's claim he doesn't want to go backwards conceals the reality he wants to go even further

backwards. He wants, along with his fellow racist oligarchs, to return Cuba to the hideous conditions it suffered for the vast majority of the population, with ALL of the Cuban workers who didn't have any of the few office jobs dependent upon seasonal work, with NO WORK available otherwise, with dreadful huts, no plumbing, electricity, medical treatment, forget even basic education.

The only people who made out in pre-revolutionary Cuba were the European descended elites, everyone else suffered, and people who didn't like it were suppressed violently, tortured, murdered by the death squads. Doesn't anyone ever wonder why they staged TWO separate revolutions, for crissakes? Something was goddamned WRONG about the way they were running their filthy, vicious government.

Menendez is howling in the wind, clearly. He may as well be a Republican, like his fellow loons in Miami. Even Richard Lugar sees things far more rationally, of course.

[Peace Patriot]

2. “While it is too early to allow Cuba back into the OAS outright..."--Lugar

What arrogance! Lunatics like Menendez serve the function of making arrogant "Monroe Doctrine" statements like Lugar's only seem reasonable. They are not, really. ALL OF LATIN AMERICA WANTS CUBA BACK IN THE OAS AND NORMALIZATION OF U.S./CUBA RELATIONS! So what frigging right does the U.S. have to say "it's too early"?

NONE!

And if U.S. meddling in Latin America continues, the southern half of this hemisphere will simply go its own way. Good leftist governments have been elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The left--that is, the leaders who support social justice, Latin American sovereignty and Latin American cooperation, and oppose U.S. domination--now far outnumber the toady leaders who are propped up by our corpo/fascist-serving government--with BILLIONS of U.S. tax dollars in military aid to the narco-fascists running Colombia and to the tool of the oil industry running Mexico, with the nazification of Peru proceeding apace from similar U.S. military funds and "free trade" (free fire zone on union leaders and other leftists), and the U.S. military dominating Panama (thus, a fascist billionaire won the presidency this month). And that's about it. Four U.S. toady countries. The fascists love the U.S. and the U.S. loves the fascists and would like to be rid of the democrats with a small d.

However, at least one of the few remaining countries with fascist leadership support welcoming Cuba back to the OAS and ending the insane U.S. policy against Cuba. Mexico recognized the Castro government long ago. This doesn't mean that the U.S. can't arm-twist Calderon to vote against it, but Mexico's official policy is typical of the overwhelming sentiment in Latin America about Cuba. (I'm not sure of Colombia, Peru and Panama, as to official positions.)

South America has formed its own economic/diplomatic organization--UNASUR--along the lines of the EU Common Market, by which they can evade--and have evaded--the U.S. influence at the OAS which always operates against the interest of Latin Americans. When the Bushwhacks tried to topple Evo Morales' government in Bolivia, this last September, and the Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia for their collusion with fascist rioters and murderers, the newly formed UNASUR was the vehicle of unity and resistance to that assault. Earlier last year, before UNASUR was formalized, they took the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid against Ecuador to the informal, all Latin American Rio Group, and there prevented the war that Donald Rumsfeld had his heart set upon starting between Colombia and the oil rich states of Ecuador and Venezuela. Again, without the U.S. there, with its bully power overriding everybody else, the leaders of Latin America were able to solve the problem. The OAS is over--in effect, if not yet in fact. The peoples and leaders of Latin America are onto it, as an unfair, unequal forum for their concerns. So, Lugar coming along with this snotty statement--"while it's too early..." blah, blah, blah--strikes me as 'whistling in the dark.' He wishes, mightily, that this attitude is still relevant in these vastly changed circumstances in Latin America, with leftist leaders all over the map, and every leader across the political spectrum advocating respect for the sovereignty of Latin American countries. It is not relevant--except as a clue to Obama's problem in facing a united left in Latin America. It sticks out. It is old hat. It comes from another era.

Lugar may be important to the U.S. facing this new reality, but that does not mean that I have to swallow his 'centrist' B.S., pushed to the right by the far right. The issue is NOT that it's "too early." The issue is that it may well be TOO LATE for the U.S. to regain the respect of Latin Americans.

[magbana]

3. Insulza is a slippery fellow. If you set aside for a moment that Cuba

doesn't want to return to the OAS, period, I think the Insulza offer is a set-up. I believe the intention of his offer is to send Cuba out on a limb with the OAS Democratic Charter, where the US will say that Cuba does not adhere to the charter, and cannot legitimately be re-admitted to the OAS. Now, considering the fact that Cuba doesn't want to return to the OAS, it will be deemed recalcitrant and ungrateful in the face of Insulza's magnanimous offer. Actually, its not Insulza's place to make this offer anyway. You don't hear Cuba's allies suggesting re-admission to the OAS because they know Cuba has no interest. Insulza's relentless pushing on the issue means a trap is being laid.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Thank you, Magbana! I think you are right. And it is the U.S. that is "out of compliance"

with the OAS Charter. With our elections now all counted by a handful of far rightwing corporations, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code, with virtually no audit/recount controls, we cannot be said to even have a democracy, let alone the right to say what democracy is, or who has a democracy and who doesn't. This is such a farce. Cuba has far, FAR more equality that we do, even if they do have a sort of monarchy. Everybody eats. Everybody has a home and useful employment. Everybody is entitled to medical care and education through university free of charge. They have the best medical system in the western hemisphere, even with the U.S. cruelly embargoing medical equipment and needed drugs. Most decisions are by consent of the people, argued out democratically and voted on. Does everyone eat here? Does everyone have a home and useful employment, and free medical care and a free college education? Are ANY decisions of our government EVER made by consultation with the people? Not one that I can think of! Not one! All decisions here are dictated by global corporate predators and their lobbyists. Is that democracy? It is not. Is a nearly 100% non-transparent, privatized, corporatized, 'TRADE SECRET' voting system democracy? It is not. So the torturers and liars and multibillionaires and looters and warmongers running things here ought to STFU when it comes to democracy. Assholes.

[magbana]

5. Peace Patriot, excellent commentary. The hypocrisy of the US is never ending n/t