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| Insulza of Chile sworn in to head OAS |
Washington / AFP
05/27/2005
Jose Miguel Insulza of Chile was sworn in Thursday as secretary general
of the Organization of American States, at its headquarters here.
The former Chilean vice president and interior minister was elected
to the OAS post on May 2, to succeed Miguel Angel Rodriguez, who resigned
to face corruption charges in his native Costa Rica, where he had
served as president from 1998-2002.
Insulza assumed his post 10 days before the OAS annual assembly, to
be held June 5-7 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
US representative to the OAS Luigi Einaudi had held the position of
acting secretary general.
Insulza spoke in favor of a US-backed initiative to monitor Latin
America’s democracies as he met for the first time with the
press as secretary general.
“It is not about giving the
governments a grade, but to be able to say with deliberation that
there are problems here, difficulties here, needs here,” Insulza
said, after an earlier speech in which he asked for the tools for
what he called the effective application of the OAS Democratic Charter,
which can impose sanctions on countries that stray from constitutional
democracy.
“I do not like the word ‘monitor’
very much,” he said, alluding to the US plan, which envisions
a democracy monitoring commission, which Venezuela rejected immediately.
Insulza said his alternative, an “evaluation mechanism,”
should exist with the understanding of member states that it would
not intervene in their domestic affairs. Insulza, 61, has served as
Chile’s foreign minister and interior minister, as well as being
named vice president when President Ricardo Lagos was traveling outside
Chile.
He has held cabinet posts for a total of 10 years, longer than anyone
in Chile’s history, despite a 14-year exile during Chile’s
military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet 1973-1990.
It was while exiled in Mexico that he met his Mexican wife, Georgina
Nunez. |
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