The OAS and Pan-Americanism

The Organization of American States (OAS) was built and has functioned under the banner of Pan-Americanism, but Pan-Americanism is a doctrine that doesn’t respond to the ideals of Americanism embodied by Bolivar, Valle, Juarez and Marti.

Pan-Americanism is an approach formulated by expansionist circles of the United States beginning with the Monroe Doctrine in the 19th century and the “Roosevelt Corollary” at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its objective is to theoretically justify the subjection of the poor countries of Latin America to the geopolitical interests of the more powerful country, and the extraction of its economic surplus by the monopolistic capital of that country.

Its background and unquestioned status as a tool that favors the interventionist policy of the North American state, its diplomatic strategy and its military adventures, have made it such that the people of the continent completely reject the theoretical content of Pan-Americanism and the actions of its contemporary representative organization, the Organization of American States.

Naturally, some things have changed in this regional entity; it is not the same region it was in 1954 that paved the way in Caracas for the invasion of Guatemala in order to resolve a specific problem of the United Fruit Company, or that of Punta del Este, which granted the expulsion of Cuba in 1962. The essence continues to be the same, however: submission to the influence of the government of the United States.

For example, a press dispatch that originated in Washington reported yesterday about the possible determination of the U.S. government to terminate its aid to this organization if, in its meeting in San Pedro Sula, it agrees to the integration of Cuba.

By contrast, Americanism is the position of our heroes and thinkers of the American nations, especially those south of the Rio Grande and the Caribbean, to affirm their independence and the search for happiness in peace and justice.

For this reason it is necessary that in the camp of solidarity and with the desire for development we are able to strengthen the initiative of countries like Brazil, who, faced with the deception of the OAS, has proposed the construction of a new representative structure for the peoples of the continent.

In this new instance, we must all be there, whatever the nature of our social regime, not by the consent or withdrawal of anyone but by our status as sovereign countries.