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Tuesday, June 05, 2018

Debacle at the OAS?

Today in Washington the OAS started one of its big regular meetings.  You know, those where the foreign secretaries come themselves to talk and vote on resolutions. Even Mike Pompeo was in attendance, forgetting about North Korea for a short while.


There is only two points to note. First, the presentation of Venezuela's minister, Arreaza, son in law of Chavez (how else could such a mediocrity be there?) was dismal, grey, full of cliches, lies and insults.  The secretary from Chile, Ampuero, got the money quote of the day wondering aloud, and to applause by an audience that supposedly should be neutral, that if Arreaza treats his colleagues at the OAS in such a way, let's imagine how his regime treats its own people.  The video next, if you understand Spanish (I do not want to soil this blog putting up Arreaza words, too embarrassing to watch how degraded is now Venezuela's foreign service, once upon a time the light of Latin America).



The big moment is tomorrow when we will know for sure whether the OAS finally gets the resolve to sanction the regime. It seems like it. Several countries have put forward the formal request to do so. In general when this happens it is because they are pretty much certain to win. But better confirmation came from Maduro himself earlier on, declaring that he will call for a national holiday when Venezuela is finally out of the OAS, that this was the last time Venezuela was attending. Since Venezuela allegedly resigned, its time is up until April 2019 (I read somewhere, but do not quote me on that) it could even miss OAS sessions already, but it is not. So even if Arreaza does not show up tomorrow for the vote, the OAS can still officially "suspend" Venezuela and apply the Democratic Charter.

So let's see if the diplomacy of Venezuela, once one of the brilliant ones of the hemisphere, is going to end up in its final miserable debacle tomorrow. But when you get to be foreign minister because you fucked the daughter of Chavez, or president of Venezuela because you started as a cheap body guard, how can you expect anything else than a debacle, no matter how your Cuban mentors direct you?



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3 comments:

  1. William Hubschwerlin4:53 PM

    Mike Pompeo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4zkJ0G_hQE

    ReplyDelete
  2. Canadian Ash11:10 PM

    I thought Pense's speech to the OAS was not very good. Yes he points out the obvious but everything was about Trump and not the American people. All the on behalf of Trump and not words like on behalf of the American people who they represent. Also I thought it was weak in that it talked of the problems of Vebezuelans but didn't dangle the carrot of how the once wealthy Venezuela benefited all the countries in the OAS and how Maduro and the regime has taken it from greatness to a cancer on all the Americas.
    Was about what Trump wanted and what Trump was doing about the problems. Not a strong political speech to the OAS at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clair Dufour10:12 PM

    And again most of LatAm and the region took no action hoping the problem will just go away or perhaps their just as dirty and don't want to be next. Let the Gringos deal with it and we can hate them more? They don't get it because this time Russia and China have Venezuela by the balls and they are going to make the most of it!

    ReplyDelete

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