Bloggings by boz

Yesterday, the OAS passed by consensus a resolution that eliminates the 1962 restriction on Cuba for being a Marxist-Leninist state (last week's post on the issue here). Yesterday's resolution allows Cuba to request a dialogue with the OAS to reenter "in conformity with the practices, purposes and principles of the OAS."

There are a lot of winners from yesterday's decision.

• The hemisphere wins overall as it has eliminated an anachronistic restriction and created a path for integrating Cuba into the OAS.
• The hemisphere also wins because it exercised its influence to get this issue on the agenda and it managed to moderate a consensus compromise between the US and countries that wanted a resolution that contained no conditions.
• In particular, Honduras wins because they pushed hard to get a consensus resolution passed while the General Assembly was in the country. According to some sources behind the scenes, Brazil and Ecuador also played a role in getting the final deal done.
• Some of Cuba's pro-democracy dissidents supported a path to reentry to the OAS as they believe it will give them leverage to push for human rights and democracy in Cuba. I think it may have that benefit long term.
  

The biggest losers are those trapped in a Cold War mentality. Among the losers:

• Republican members of the US Congress are already moving to cut funds to the OAS, showing themselves to be out of step with most of the hemisphere.
• Fidel Castro continues to use the Cold War as an excuse for Cuba's repression and avoidance of the principles the hemisphere has agreed to under the OAS. He has become as much of an anachronism in the hemisphere as the '62 resolution.

Somewhere in between:

• Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela pushed hard to allow Cuba's reentry without conditions. Those countries went so far as to walk away from negotiations on Tuesday night. However, they came back the following morning, moderated their position, and agreed to the consensus resolution supported by the rest of the hemisphere.
• The Obama administration scored a win because it held its ground on the resolution containing language about the "practices, purposes and principles of the OAS." Most of the hemisphere supported the compromise position with the US, forcing the three nations who had taken a more extreme position of no conditions to meet at a middle ground. However, the US did need to move a bit on the language and this issue was not one that the US originally wanted to discuss at the General Assembly.
• The OAS and Secretary General Insulza. While this was an important historical moment, as I wrote yesterday, the issue also hijacked the broader hemispheric agenda. The OAS also reached its usual consensus resolution, but the tough negotiations raise some real questions about thegovernability of the OAS and its ability to make progress on other issues.