A New Organization of the Americas

Meeting in Cancun (which has oddly become quite the host of international meetings despite its gringo-kitsch aesthetics), 32 Latin American nations have decided to form a new organization to advance the interests of the Americas—including Cuba, excluding the United States and Canada.

President Calderón was quick to herald the move, stating, “We will strengthen our voice in the concert of nations through this new mechanism, to become protagonists and no longer mere spectators of what happens in the world.”

The currently unnamed organization may succeed in a diplomatic gesture of “sticking it to the man.” But miniscule are the odds of a vibrant forum where Latin American interests are addressed in a meaningful manner.

Latin America has a storied past of lovely ideas for transnational cooperation that garner ubiquitous support then go nowhere. The Drago doctrine and the LAFTA are but two examples. LAFTA’s successor, the Latin American Integration Association still exists–Who knew? MERCOSUR, after a promising start in the 1990s, has receded into oblivion since it expanded to include Venezuela.

I can only think of one example where a wholly Latin American organization notched a significant diplomatic victory: in 1996 an all-but-certain coup was thwarted in Paraguay because MERCOSUR threatened to expel the tiny land-locked nation. Realizing this would mean economic ruination, the coup plotters desisted.

And already the new forum is falling prey to demagoguery. Chávez and Uribe got into a heated exchange at the conference on Monday. Chávez apparently threatened to walk out, to which Uribe purportedly shouted, “Be a man, stay here, because sometimes you insult from a distance, but when we’re face to face, we don’t talk.” (For more on this I recommend David Sussman’s Venezuela blog.)

The point: Latin American initiatives start out strong, and fizzle fast. Once the shine of a new theatre fades, promising fewer headlines for grandiloquent speeches, member-states just move on, eventually creating some new organization.

Rousing agreement was expressed on the matter of British drilling around the Falklands. Calls for the United States to end its embargo of Cuba were also popular. Too bad, though, the region’s gaze can’t be honed on Haiti with such ardor.