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FRENADESO covered the city with its litany against Condoleeza Rice

Rice doesn't get the OAS to condemn Chávez

photo and article by Eric Jackson

The assembled Western Hemisphere diplomats were, as one might have expected, generally diplomatic. But US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice strayed from the OAS summit agenda to blast Venezuela over its non-renewal of the RCTV television network's broadcast license and call for the organization to send an investigating team to Caracas. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas was uncompromising and blunt in his response.

A few of the others at the gathering, including Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, said some things about freedom of expression that could only be taken as veiled criticism of the Venezuelan government's action. However, after all was said and done the summit passed Venezuela's resolution on freedom of expression, nobody joined the Americans in their walkout during Maduro's rebuttal and the US call to send a team to Caracas was ignored.

It would be a mistake to take the result of the OAS summit as an endorsement of the Venezuelan government's decision not to renew the RCTV license. When all is said and done, Hugo Chávez has probably lost both domestic and international support over that move, although not nearly as much as his critics had hoped that he would.

It would be more accurate to say that the United States did not pick up any new support for its vendetta against Venezuela. Even governments that are notoriously annoyed with Hugo Chávez didn't follow Rice's lead.

American leadership in the OAS has been weakening for years, to the point that Insulza won became secretary general against US opposition. Long ago the OAS jumped off the anti-Castro bandwagon. But this latest slight to US influence may be less an indication of overall anti-Americanism in Latin America and the Caribbean than a determination that George W. Bush is a lame duck who's unpopular at home and whose foreign policy priorities are elsewhere.

High school riots
US State Department's take on human trafficking in Panama

Costa Rica dumps Taiwan for China

Rice doesn't much impress the OAS
Panama News Briefs