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Latin America
Celebrates OAS Resolution On
Ending Cuba's Exclusion
The Organization of
American States (OAS) Wednesday unanimously voted in
favor of revoking Cuba's exclusion from the
organization at the 39th OAS general assembly in the
Honduran city of San Pedro Sula.
According to information reaching here, many Latin
American countries celebrated the OAS resolution and
regarded it as historic.
At the start of the meeting's plenary session,
Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas said that
"it is resolved that resolution six, adopted on Jan.
31, 1962, at the eighth Foreign Ministers
Consultative Meeting, which excluded the Cuban
government from participation in the Inter-American
system is ruled null and void for the OAS."
In his address to the assembly, Honduran President
Jose Manuel Zelaya said "we are all completely in
agreement. The cold war has ended here in San Pedro
Sula."
Debate on the text had been so heated that U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked out of the
10-hour meeting on Tuesday. However, in early hours
of Wednesday, her deputy Thomas A. Shannon,
assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere
affairs, approved the resolution unchanged.
Shannon told the media on Wednesday that "we have
eliminated one obstacle to Cuba's reintegration to
the OAS, and we have established a compromise with
Cuba, a path toward the future based on OAS
principles, values and practices."
In Argentina, President Cristina Fernandez said that
the decision of the OAS on annulling "the sanction
against Cuba set many years ago was historic."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said at national TV
and radio broadcast that the OAS decision "asserted
and recognized the revolutionary Cuba."
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said that
the revocation of that exclusion represented "an
assertion to Cuba, to its people, to Commander Fidel
Castro and the historical direction of the
Revolution."
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconi said at
the Assembly that Cuba had been isolated due to U.S.
pressure, in breach of international law as applied
in the Americas, during 1962's eighth meeting of OAS
foreign ministers held in Uruguay's capital
Montevideo.
"It is time to see us, all the nations of the
Americas, to regard each other with respect and in
equality, to honor our differences and seek to
complement each other, to rectify our mistakes and
build the new institutions which our dream of
regional integration demands," Falconi said.
Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said that
"it is a truly historic moment for the OAS. As it is
known, Chile did not approve the sanction in 1962
and in that sense, our country celebrates the
lifting of it."
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also said on
Wednesday that "we are not making it a favor,
because Cuba is not interested on re-entering the
OAS, Cuba has fought a battle, a heroic one for
50years, facing many aggressions from the United
States, that is why it deserves our recognition."
Meanwhile in Cuba, Paraguayan President Fernando
Lugo said that "whatever we do at the OAS will not
be enough, compared with all what Cuba has suffered
in the last 50 years."
Lugo added that "we have learnt a lot from the
dignity of this (Cuban) people, able to resist the
embargo and to keep itself alive and with solidarity
as an example for many countries."
Cuba's top officials have repeatedly said that they
have little or no interest in returning to the body.
In a newspaper column published earlier Wednesday,
Cuban former leader Fidel Castro again described the
body as a U.S. Trojan horse.
Cuba was the topic that caught most attention at the
assembly, although the main topic for discussion was
supposed to be non-violence.
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