Tight security at OAS assembly

Honduras: The Organization of American States (OAS) will open its 39th general assembly on Tuesday in this northern Honduran city, tightly guarded by close to 3,000 police agents and troops.

The agents tension increased on Monday night, after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived, causing a failed attempt by the US secret service to again check all press accreditation.

OAS officials requested that reporters leave the press hall and go again through metal detectors at the entrance of the Honduran Arab Social Center, the meeting’s venue, but finally, the decision was not accepted.

Clinton arrived at the place at around 21:20, local time, and went quickly to a closely watched room, to have a private dinner with host President Manuel Zelaya.

The subject of the conference is Towards a Culture of No Violence, but the issue that attracts the journalists’ attention is an eventual suspension of the measures against Cuba, adopted in 1962. The island was expelled from the organization, due to strong pressure from the United States against the then emerging Cuban Revolution. After receiving his Paraguayan peer Fernando Lugo, who will attend the opening ceremony, President Zelaya asserted that if the OAS does not rectify its error of excluding Cuba, it would be condemning itself.

During his stay in Honduras on Sunday for an official visit, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said in this regard that “the OAS is about to disappear. It is time to create something of our own.”

Thus, Ecuador is proposing to create an Organization of Latin American States, without alien countries to our history, culture and values, and including nations that have been inexplicably separated from the Inter-American system, such as Cuba, which is a shame, he said.

However, the issue of the former reprisal against Cuba does not appear on the official general assembly agenda, although and OAS working group held private negotiations on Monday to find ways to lift Cuba’s expulsion.

According to the program, President Zelaya and OAS Secretary General, Chilean Jose Miguel Insulza, will speak at the opening ceremony. The Paraguayan and Nicaraguan presidents’ attendance has been planned. Prensa Latina