Argentinean president says the OAS is useless

Buenos Aires, July 31 (RHC)-- The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, said Friday that the Organization of American States (OAS) is not useful today and considers that the entity plays a role that does not contribute to the Latin American union.

In the framework of the second anniversary of the Puebla Group, the head of state ratified the call to deepen the brotherhood among the States of the region and condemned the implementation of economic blockades, such as those imposed on Cuba and Venezuela, intensified in the midst of the pandemic.

During the virtual meeting called Democracy, Integration and Social Justice in Latin America, he affirmed that "the first one who has to do his mea culpa is his Secretary General Luis Almagro, for the number of things he has done and also the institutionalism of the United States (US) for having proposed and supported a man like Almagro".

Likewise, he specified that former U.S. President Donald Trump "imposed his policy on Latin America and that explains many things that happened; that explains the OAS we have, the division we have, the birth of the Lima Group, the Prosur Forum; all mechanisms that served Trump's policy and not the unity of Latin America, nor the development and progress".

"What the OAS has done in Bolivia must necessarily be investigated and must necessarily be judged because now there are no doubts about what happened," he said.

The President praised the leading role of the Puebla Group in the "contribution to a very substantial debate to find alternative paths, to succeed in moving forward and to get rid of the sad stigma of being the most unequal continent in the world".

Fernández spoke of the need for unity among the countries of the region to achieve better renegotiations of their foreign debts, a situation which, he believes, will have a global impact, and urged the State to be the greatest guarantor of equality and solidarity of the peoples.

The Argentine president called on the Puebla Group to institutionalize regional unity, through instruments such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), to the detriment of the OAS.

"Being progressive is not only about distributing wealth in a more egalitarian way, yes, but it is also about guaranteeing gender equality, ending any kind of discrimination, promoting the unity of the continent at a time when the world is becoming regionalized; all these are debts that we have in our societies," he said.