OAS fails to agree on Cuba membership

[June 03, 2009]  SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) -- A debate tinged with Cold War-era rhetoric over Cuba's possible return to the Organization of American States looks set to end with no result Wednesday after the 34-nation group failed to agree on moves that could allow communist island back in.

After a day of rancorous statements from the Western Hemisphere's growing roster of elected socialist and populist leaders, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the organization's annual general assembly was unable to reach consensus on Cuba.

"At this moment there is no consensus and there is no agreement to take any action," she told reporters on Tuesday before leaving the meeting in Honduras to join U.S. President Barack Obama in Egypt.

U.S. officials said the failure was a disappointment for the Obama administration, which had hoped that its recent overtures to the Cuban government would overcome widespread resentment of Washington's long history of isolating Havana.

Clinton had hoped that a compromise could be reached by the end of the assembly on Wednesday, but U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said later those chances were slim.

"We need a miracle to see something," said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.

Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for the Americas, blamed the stalemate on the refusal of a small club of governments allied with Cuba, led by Venezuela and Nicaragua, to accept a last-minute deal.

Those countries had been pushing to revoke Cuba's nearly 50-year expulsion from the group. While the U.S. was agreeable to that point, it demanded that any move to restore Cuba be pinned to its acceptance of democratic principles, reform and respect for human rights.

"Regretfully, we were unable to construct a consensus largely because (those) countries were unprepared at this point to accept enumeration of those core principles," Shannon said.

U.S. officials said diplomats from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, along with the Honduran hosts of the meeting and others, had not returned to negotiations after promising to seek instructions on a draft resolution on Cuba from their capitals.

Clinton spent much of Tuesday pressing OAS members to agree to a formula under which the organization would rescind its 1962 suspension of Cuba but tie its return to democratic reform.

"A number of countries were pushing hard for a simple resolution that would lift the suspension and nothing else, (but) we have been making the case that that is not in the best interests of the OAS," Clinton said.

In doing so, Clinton highlighted the administration's outreach to Cuba over the last four months, noting it had lifted restrictions on money transfers and travel to the island by Americans with family there and was resuming long-stalled immigration and postal service talks.

In a prepared statement to be delivered at a closed session, she acknowledged that "in the past, the U.S. has sometimes taken a counterproductive approach to domestic affairs within the hemisphere that created mistrust and suspicion," according to a copy given to reporters.

But her arguments were met with stony responses from some, and even she allowed that the U.S. was "pretty much by itself" in making the demands. She claimed to have made steady progress in convincing moderate nations of their importance to the group's credibility.

However, she also said that "we don't agree with the bare-bones proposal" and added that "if there is no action that is fine with us."

Yet the hardline stand appeared to leave the U.S. isolated and prompted a barrage of anti-U.S. rhetoric from the socialists who demanded immediate and unconditional action to restore Cuba's OAS membership, even though Cuban leader Raul Castro says he is not interested.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the United States is continuing to use the OAS as "an instrument of domination" and that Cuba's suspension was due to the support of former conservative Latin American dictators who were "used by the Yankees."

At a news conference the Sandinista leader accused the Obama administration of being no different from previous administrations. "The president has changed, but not American policy," Ortega said.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called Cuba's suspension, and the U.S. embargo on the island, a "day of infamy" and a grave injustice. "Friends, it is time to correct that mistake," he told the meeting.

[Associated Press; By MATTHEW LEE]

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