The Annual OAS Assembly

Latin America has important meetings in the upcoming days. Today will be the broadcast of the command of El Salvador, where a person who was a guerilla up until a few years ago, a representative from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMNLF), will assume the presidency of the country.

The rise to power of journalist Mauricio Funes goes along with the presence of President Michelle Bachelet and distinguished representatives from governments throughout the whole continent, including the United States.

The FMNLF failed in the 1980s in its attempt to take power by force, but now it comes to the government by democratic means in a clear sign that times have changed in our region. The setting of the Cold War was left behind in the 1990s. However, some of its consequences still remain today.

The day after the ceremonies in El Salvador, the annual Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) begins. In the town of San Pedro Sula, the chancellors of America will try to remove another obstacle in the confrontation between blocs that ended in the last decade: the sanction of Cuba that it carried to its expulsion from the multilateral organization.

After reading the motives for its expulsion (links with the Chinese-Soviet bloc and the adhesion to the Marist-Leninist ideology), there still remains evidence that the resolution does not have meaning in the historic context of the twenty-first century.

This year, of the members of the OAS, the United States will be the only country that does not have diplomatic relations with Cuba, which makes the decision to not reintegrate the Caribbean nation to the multilateral organization relatively absurd. Nevertheless, Washington has insisted that Cuba should comply with the democratic clause of the international request before being incorporated.

The discussion about the democratic credentials of the Cuban state can take various, more general, assemblies. However, the elimination of the excluding decision of expulsion is a good step in order for Cuba to integrate itself into the American community.

Latin America has inhabited itself with governments of democratic origin with a distinct mark. This fact obliges one to leave behind the confrontation mentality of irreconcilable blocs, but does not correspond to actual reality.

The politics of Cuba’s rapprochement can serve justly to better the concepts and the practices of democracy that exist on the continent, including those of the United States and those of the island.

The presence of Barack Obama in the presidency of the United States and his shown disposition to dialogue at the recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago reinforces the idea that one of the most serious conflicts between countries that the continent has had – including the missile crisis – can be nearing its end.

As it is, it will depend a lot on the attitudes of the Cuban and U.S. authorities, since holding dialogues is like dancing tango; it takes two.