[ESPANISH VERSION AT THE BOTTOM]
The American Continent
Demands the Resignation or Expulsion of the
Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro
We the undersigned citizens and residents, as well as organizations of the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean, committed to the sovereign equality of our nations, respectful of the democratic institutions of our peoples, and aware of the grave history of foreign military intervention in Latin America, declare our strong rejection of the declarations this week by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro. During his September 14th visit to Cucuta, Colombia, the Secretary General said “with regard to military intervention to overthrow the regime of Nicolas Maduro, I believe that we should not discard any option.”
It is an extremely serious matter that as a representative of an international body, in theory the custodian of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, who is charged with protecting, as a sacred duty, continental democracy, expresses in such a blatant form the possibility of military intervention against a republic of our Americas.
Luis Almagro, breaking with the impartiality that ought to characterize the office of the Secretary General, a post representing a community of nations with all its political and ideological diversity, has led an extremely partisan, targeted, discriminatory campaign aimed exclusively against the legitimate government, elected at the polls, of President Nicolas Maduro, thereby allying himself in an integral way with the hegemonic policies of the government of the United States towards the continent.
Secretary Almagro has attacked the government of Nicolas Maduro on numerous occasions in terms that denigrate the entire continent and the values of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. This is not the first time Almagro has broken with the democratic institutionality of the Americas. On April 3, 2017, Almagro manipulated the Permanent Council of the OAS, using unscrupulous maneuvering to suspend the Presidency of Bolivia for just enough time to appoint the representative of the government of Honduras, an ally of Almagro’s partisan efforts. This was done in an attempt to force a vote of condemnation against the government of President Maduro, an effort that failed to garner the support of the minimum required number of countries.
The reprehensible conduct of Almagro evokes the specter of the historic record of the OAS, during the cold war, when the continental body abandoned its regional spirit and became another arm of the imperialist foreign policy of the United States.
Almagro has never expressed, in similar terms, his denunciation of the grave situation of Honduras, one of the most violent countries on the planet. He responded in a passive manner to the electoral fraud of November 2017, despite the denunciation of serious irregularities by his own observation team of the election that brought Juan Orlando Hernandez to power.
Almagro has also not condemned, with the same force he attacks Venezuela, the government of Mexico, co-responsible for the disappearance of 43 students of Ayotzinapa, and the tens of thousands of persons tortured, disappeared, mutilated and murdered at the hands of state actors and narco-criminals.
Almagro has not raised his voice in the face of the serious state of affairs in Colombia, where more than 7.6 million Colombians have been displaced by civil conflict and 343 social movement leaders and human rights defenders have been murdered since January 2016. Hundreds more continue to receive death threats. The selective indignation of Luis Almagro speaks for itself.
The gravity of the statements of Almagro constitutes a strong moral blow against his own nation’s history. Uruguay, the Secretary’s country of origin, has itself suffered the drama of military intervention, one that brought death and suffering to hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans. The same historic drama took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans during the dictatorships of Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. To call for military intervention in Venezuela is an enormous infamy and reflects a disdain for the very institutionality of the OAS and its Inter-American Democratic Charter.
The Lima Group, despite being allied with the foreign policy of the United States, gave a rare show of independent democratic expression by repudiating Almagro’s declarations. But this Group, some of whose member nation’s face their own serious political and economic challenges, has yet to repudiate the economic sanctions against Venezuela and align itself with the cause of regional peace and cooperation. Nevertheless, this “preoccupation and rejection” by the Lima Group of Almagro’s bellicose statement in Cucuta shows the seriousness of Almagro’s escalating interventionism since he assumed the post of Secretary General of the OAS.
For all the above reasons, the undersigned urge the immediate resignation or expulsion by means of a vote by the member states of the OAS of the present Secretary General, Luis Almagro, for the serious abandonment of his duties, for his repudiation of the democratic values of the continent, for breaking the guidelines of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and for his partisan and intensely adversarial conduct towards the elected government of Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela.
Washington DC, Sep. 17, 2018
To support this initiative write to the following address: AlmagroVeteYa@gmail.com
Firmas/Signatures
Nombre y cargo, o nombre de la organización / Name and title, or organization’s name
Use a star* when organization is for identification only. Usa estrella cuando organizacion es solamente para identificación
- Comité Ejecutivo del Foro de Sao Paulo en Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia
- Comité Ejecutivo del Foro de Sao Paulo en New York City, NY
- Frederick B. Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University*
- William Camacaro Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle-WBAI producer
- Dr Francisco Dominguez, Middlesex University, London, UK
- Kevin Zeese, co-director, Popular Resistance
- Margaret Flowers, co-director, Popular Resistance.
- Daniel Kovalik, Adjunct Professor of International Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
- Efia Nwangaza, Founder-Director Malcolm X Center for Self Determination
- Lee Artz, Director Center for Global Studies Purdue Northwest
- Arnold Matlin (Rochester Committee on Latin America)
- Hugo Siles Alvarado, Cochabamba, Former Ambassador from Bolivia to the UN in New York
- Henry Lowendorf, Co-chair Greater New Haven Peace Council PO Box 3105
- Claudia Chaufan, MD, PhD Associate Professor York University * Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada
- CINDY SHEEHAN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST OF CINDY SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX WWW.CINDYSHEEHANSSOAPBOX.BLOGSPOT.COM COORDINATOR OF WOMEN’S MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
- Tarak Kauff Veterans For Peace Managing Editor Peace In Our Times Executive Committee Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases
- Roger D. Harris 10 Echo Avenue Corte Madera, CA 94925
- Stephen Sefton, community worker, Nicaragua
- Nombre Barbara Moore, Profession, escritora
- Walter Tillow, Louisville, Kentucky
- Rick Sterling, Board President of Task Force on the Americas
- Nicolas J S Davies Author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
- Enrique Hernández-D’Jesús, poeta y fotógrafo venezolano C.I. 3315461
- Gerardo Renique * City University of New York
- Suzanne Ross; International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ)
- PanAfrica International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal / MOVE
- arbara Larcom
- Coordinator, Casa Baltimore/Limay Baltimore, Maryland
- Fr. Luis Barrios, Ph.D., STM Holyrood Church/ Iglesia Santa Cruz
- Maria Páez Victor Spokesperson Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle Toronto
- Angel Concha ca
- Priscilla Felia Whitestone NY
- Lisa Makarchuk *Retired Teachers of Ontario
- Joanna Beltrán Girón, Graduate Student, Latin American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
- Venceremos Brigade,
- Fuerza de la Revolucion,
- Haiti Liberte
- Emile Schepers, Virginia USA
- International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity
- Carol I Moeller Costa, Task Force on the Americas* California, USA
- Tereza Carbajal (Washington DC)
- Roberto Villarroel
- Gerald Meyer, Prof. Emeritus Hostos Community College (CUNY)
- Jose Gregorio Bermudez Soto
- Eddy Córdova Córcega.
- Arelis Meza. Venezuela
- Reinaldo Sosa. Venezuela
- Judith Valencia. Venezuela
- Victor Meza. Venezuela
- Eliana Meza. Venezuela
- Raquel Bonzi Paraguay
- Ruben Cesar Suarez Frente Amplio Conaicop Uruguay
- Consejo Nacional e Internacional de la Comunicación Popular
- Red Contacto Sur- Uruguay
- Radio Ciudadana 103.3 fm Uruguay
- Maigualida Rivas. UDO Venezuela
- Carlos Jesús Almeida Morgado. República Bolivariana de Venezuela.
- Enny Pulgar-Venezolana residente en Argentina
- Fernando Rousseau, República Argentina
- Omar Nabil Nasser. Venezuela
- Maigualida Rivas. UDO Venezuela
- Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice-Venezuela Solidarity Campaign -Canada
- Mobilization Against War and Occupation – Vancouver, Canada
- Azza Rojbi (Friends of Cuba Against the U.S. Blockade-Vancouver)
- Thomas Davies (Climate Convergence Metro Vancouver)
- Huáscar Gelacio Guilarte, Venezuela
September 20, 2018 at 6:35 pm |
Venezuelan nuclear engineer living in the USA, tired of the attacks against of the Venezuelan people and society.
September 21, 2018 at 6:05 pm |
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