Giordano: Democracy Triple Play: Ecuador to Mexico to the OAS
The Smackdown of Condoleezza’s Agenda Came on the Week of Her Latin American Tour
May 1, 2005
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For the first time in the history of the Organization of American States, the United States has been unable to impose
its own candidate as head of that organization. As Narco News founder Al Giordano reports, the 34-nation OAS is almost
certain to elect the U.S.'s last choice for secretary general, socialist Chilean Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza,
in a move that continues an extraordinary series events in our América. From Ecuador, to Mexico, and now the halls of
the OAS, Latin America's peoples and governments are rejecting domination from above, especially from the U.S., at
unprecedented levels.
Giordano writes on these historic developments:
"The Organization of American States, founded in 1948, has long been a rubber-stamp for U.S. impositions in the region,
dominated by autocratic governments and dictatorships: the very same countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela,
Uruguay... - that today are practicing more vibrant forms of democracy than are practiced in the United States with its
cash-dominated electoral system and its Diebold Overlords.
"Truth be told, Washington began to loose control of the OAS steering wheel in April 2002, when the OAS balked on
recognizing the three-day coup regime in Venezuela. The control slipped a bit more in December 2002 when the OAS, for
the first time in 54 years, directly confronted Washington by voting to defend Hugo Chávez's government in Venezuela as
an elected democratic republic from a U.S.-authored resolution to damn it (a story I filed here in 2002 about that
watershed moment in OAS history now provides context for what happened last week).
"Condoleezza, entering Latin America last week, with the budget to bribe and the might to blackmail, went searching for
just one more vote to impose Mexico's Derbez as the new OAS chief. The victory was supposed to be consummated while she
was down here, to emboss her image as an effective foreign minister. Had Lucio still been in power in Ecuador, he would
have offered the easiest pickins. But by the time Condi's jet touched down in Bogotá, Lucio's head was bouncing
somewhere alongside the Amazon, and Ecuador had slipped through her fingers.
"With Mexico's own government trembling from the consequences of executing Condoleezza's desafuero plot against the
Mexico City governor, the jig was soon up. With the OAS vote tied in four consecutive votes at 17 to 17, Mexico's Fox,
as he was backing down from the desafuero plot in Mexico City, sent Derbez to inform Rice that he was withdrawing from
the OAS contest. And Mexico inched closer back to the Bolivarian América where its heart, its soul and its history
rightfully places it."
Read the full report, at:
Latin America is increasingly living in the new reality that Narco News anticipated in its first words published five
years ago. Narco News will not go unchanged by this history, and in the coming days we will tell you more about the new
places we will be going, together. Stay tuned...
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin