Monthly Archives: June 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made the unexpected move yesterday of agreeing to a direct, bilateral dialogue with Venezuela in order to reestablish full diplomatic relations. Kerry met with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez during a gathering of the OAS General Assembly, that has been taking place in the Dominican Republic this week, to discuss how to forge a less confrontational relationship between the two countries in the future. The State Department said in a statement released yesterday that the meeting is intended to be the beginning of a process for “establishing a positive path forward in the bilateral relationship.”[1] Striking an unlikely image, the pair were pictured shaking hands in front of their respective countries’ flags at the Chancellery building in Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation’s capital city.[2]  Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro welcomed the offer of relations based on mutual respect and responded by calling for an exchange of ambassadors. Kerry has appointed veteran ambassador Thomas Shannon to oversee the dialogue and develop a diplomatic strategy going forward.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Kerry also distanced the United States from attempts by the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, to invoke the OAS’s Inter-American Democratic Charter against Maduro’s government. He stated: “At this moment, I think it’s more constructive to have dialogue than to isolate.” Such sentiments come at a time of growing confrontation between the interventionist course pursued by Almagro and the insistence on national sovereignty by the Maduro administration. Kerry’s remarks represent the United States’ increasing acknowledgement of the rejection of Almagro’s stance by the region’s leaders and reflect a dampening of support for his aggressive posturing. Earlier this month an OAS meeting to discuss the possibility of invoking the Charter against Venezuela led to a unanimous declaration denouncing intervention and a rejection of applying the Charter from all but one of the countries’ representative in attendance.

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Yesterday, COHA’s Director Larry Birns handed an open letter (read here in English or Spanish) to an assistant of the Organization of American States’ Secretary-General Luis Almagro at the regional body’s Washington headquarters on behalf of scores of human rights, solidarity, and community organizations and individuals based in the United States and Canada; an action supported by nearby demonstrators expressing their opposition to Almagro’s invocation of the Democratic Charter against Venezuela. The aid promised to deliver the document to the Secretary-General directly.

The protest, which took place in the sweltering Washington summer heat, drew the participation of several U.S.-based organizations including the Boliviarian Circle of New York “Alberto Lovera,” ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink, COHA, The Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Committee (DC), the Latin American and Caribbean Action Network (DC), and the National Network of Salvadorans in the Exterior (RENASE-DC). COHA Research Fellow Peter Bolton was interviewed by TeleSur and RT to discuss the contents of the letter and the context of the action.

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