Bush budget cuts could cripple key OAS functions

Andres Oppenheimer

aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

I bet I know what you thought when you read last week that President Bush proposed a 12 percent cut in U.S. funding for the 34-country Organization of American States: Half of you said, ''so what?'' while the other half shouted, ``hooray!''

Granted, the OAS has always been best-known for its cocktail parties at its magnificent headquarters in Washington. And true enough, for much of its 57-year history, it has been little more than a golden retreat for retiring or politically sidelined diplomats.

But now that oil-rich Venezuela has joined Cuba in the active promotion of radical populism in Latin America, and now that Bolivia and others may join them in the near future, the OAS may be the last line of defense for representative democracy and human rights in the region. While its record has been spotty, the OAS has recently helped avoid coups in Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti and has approved a 2001 Democratic Charter that commits its members to ostracize any country that interrupts the rule of law.

Now, the OAS is in trouble. According to the 2007 budget proposal that Bush sent to Congress last week, the United States will reduce its special contributions to the OAS from $64 million in 2006 to $57 million in 2007. The special contributions from various countries are generally used for election observation missions or specific human rights or antidrug projects and are larger than the organization's regular operations budget.

''It's a significant signal of further retrenchment from our involvement in Latin America and a particularly bad signal against multilateralism,'' says Luis Lauredo, a former U.S. ambassador to the OAS. ``The OAS has 100 defects, but it's the only thing we have.''

DEEP TROUBLE

The OAS is already in deep financial trouble, because several member countries are way behind in their annual payments. Argentina, which hasn't paid for three years, owes $10.7 million, while Brazil owes $3.4 million, Venezuela $2.4 million, the Dominican Republic $700,000 and Uruguay $600,000.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza told me in a telephone interview that, while the group's regular operations will not be affected, the proposed U.S. budget cuts could affect observation missions to this year's elections in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Peru or Ecuador.

U.S. Ambassador to the OAS John Maisto says there will be no reduction in the U.S. commitment to the organization but rather a return to normal levels of aid following an extraordinary tax-related payment last year.

But many diplomats fear for the financial health of key OAS agencies, such as the human rights commission, which in recent years has been the OAS' most effective branch.

''It would be a serious blow to us,'' Human Rights Commission Secretary General Santiago Canton told me. ``We already have a backlog of 1,500 cases, and some of them take up to eight years to be processed. This would make things even worse.''

Will Congress approve the proposed cuts? Congressional sources say the U.S. contributions may be raised from Bush's proposal but not by much. Washington's top priority is Iraq and the war on terrorism. The fact that Bush's proposed 2007 budget contains an overall 28 percent cut in U.S. funding for development assistance to Latin America reflects this reality, they say.

Judging from some recent interviews with Washington insiders and many of the e-mails I'm getting from readers across America, there is also a certain nation-building fatigue among Americans when it comes to Latin America.

''Latin countries have done nothing to advance themselves, as China and East European countries have done,'' reader Olga Ariza wrote me last week, responding to a column in which I criticized the Bush administration's proposed cuts in aid to Latin America. ``Every time there's an election, another leftist big-mouth gets elected, the rich leave, and the poor get poorer.''

BEST INTERESTS

My conclusion: Sorry, but cooperation exhaustion could be a dangerous illness. It's in America's best interests to deepen its ties with Latin America, help the region grow, increase U.S. exports and reduce the pressures for illegal immigration, drug trafficking and security risks.

You don't build bridges by cutting foreign aid nor by cutting the funding for the region's top multilateral organization.