March 20th, 2015 -- The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said that maintaining peace and promoting democracy through political dialogue are the cornerstones of the hemispheric institution, Thursday night at the opening of the Washington Area Model United Nations Conference (WAMUNC), in Washington DC.
In his speech, Secretary General Insulza said the OAS is the world's oldest multilateral Organization, and like the other institutions of its kind, its primary mission is to maintain peace through dialogue and cooperation.
“Those two convictions reflect the essence of the task and the objectives of diplomacy in any context. Between us, in the Americas, those two convictions have driven an Inter-American tradition of meetings, understanding, and peace that is perhaps unique in the world,” said Secretary General Insulza, who was the keynote speaker for the opening of the WAMUNC, a four-day event organized by George Washington University that provides educational experiences in the area of diplomacy for thousands of students through simulations of the work system of committees of the United Nations. The OAS is a part of the United Nations system.
The Secretary General of the OAS said the Inter-American system was created during the last decade of the 19th century, and highlighted its role in promoting peace in the region. “This explains how, in a period like the 20th century, in which humanity experienced not just two World Wars, but also nearly constant situations of conflict that bloodied the rest of the planet, our Hemisphere has remained fundamentally at peace,” he said.
As an example he recalled that Chile, his country and Argentina, which share the second longest border in the world, never had an armed confrontation in more than 200 years of history. "We have had border problems, but we have never gone to war," he observed and attributed part of that success to the central role that multilateral diplomacy has played in promoting peacekeeping coexistence.
Nevertheless, the mere existence of institutions, he recalled, does not guarantee success, but requires constant work and development, to keep up with the changing reality of the Hemisphere. In that regard, he highlighted the creation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which in its first article states that the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it. Currently, he reflected, 34 of the 35 countries in the region have governments that were democratically elected, and he compared this situation with that of 25-30 years ago, when many countries of the region were ruled by dictatorships.
At the same time, Secretary General Insulza said the OAS is a political body, and he reiterated that this is just as true today as it was when its first Secretary General, the former President of Colombia Alberto Lleras Camargo, who led the OAS between 1948 and 1954, said: "The OAS will be what its member states want it to be." Elaborating on this concept, the leader of the OAS recalled that multilateral institutions are not supranational bodies and don´t have the power to give mandates to governments.
In his explanation of the work of the OAS, Secretary General Insulza said the hemispheric institution has four pillars on which bases its action: democracy, human rights, security and integral development. He noted further that the main challenges in the region are poverty and inequality, "problems seen most clearly in Latin America and the Caribbean, but are also present in Canada and the United States," he said.
A gallery of photos of the event is available here.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.
*************************
DISCLAIMER
This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKNVibes.com. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical error within press releases and commentaries. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of SKNVibes.com, its sponsors or advertisers
Venezuela News