Oas Chief Luis Almagro said: “I would not have liked Pinochet, Videla and Gregorio Álvarez to be in this room.”

In response to the criticism of exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua pronounced by Argentine President Alberto Fernández, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro, intervened this Friday at the IX Summit of the Americas and said: “I would not have liked (Augusto) Pinochet, (Rafael) Videla and Gregorio Álvarez to be in this room.” Almagro thus compared the dictators of the last century in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay with Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega and Miguel Díaz Canel, and clarified that “the dictatorship is not a matter of ideologies.” In addition, he called for “working together with the countries of the region and cooperating in favor of the human rights of citizens.” Our empathy must be with the victims of dictatorships. Those are the peoples who should be represented here,” said the Uruguayan. In this way, the head of the OAS proclaimed himself in favor of the position of the United States, which excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as dictatorships, which generated the absence at the Summit of several Latin American leaders, such as those of Mexico, Bolivia and Honduras. Almagro said: “There are extraordinary levels of poverty. Better democracies are needed, democracy is the best answer to any problem.” He also stressed the importance of “fair, free and transparent elections.” It should be noted that the Organization of American States was the one that installed the idea of alleged electoral fraud in 2019 in Bolivia, which then led to the dictatorship of Jeanine Áñez with 36 fatalities and with former Bolivian President Evo Morales exiled. Regarding the central theme of the summit, which is the migration problem, Almagro was in favor of migration and said that the countries of the continent must “attend to migrants.” “Their lives matter as much as anyone’s. We cannot allow it to be lost, we must attend to their needs, we must protect them,” he said. Regarding press freedom, Almagro pointed out that Latin America is the most dangerous for journalists, while warning about organized crime and demanding answers. He also referred to the discrimination to which the peoples of the continent are subjected. “There should be no discrimination based on race, gender or person with disabilities. We must eliminate all manifestations of discrimination,” he said. Meanwhile, she called for “urgently” developing a new “global treaty” to end violence against women and girls. “We must protect and promote the rights of women and girls in all their diversity,” she said. The IX Summit of the Americas, which is being held for the first time in the United States since its inception in 1994, will end this Friday at the end of the third plenary session of the heads of government and dialogue tables between civil society, the private sector and youth associations.

Original source in Spanish