ANADIAN CAPITALIST NEWSPAPER DISSENTS ON OAS
(The meeting of the Organization of American States, which ended September 24 after a three-day discussion on how to meet the challenge of the OLAS conference held recently in Havana, was hailed with satisfaction among imperialist circles in the U.S. For instance, The New York Times, in an editorial September 26 noted with approval the progress being made toward a "consensus on the threat of Castro's subversion" among the dictatorial regimes brought together for the confab by the Johnson administration. The Times was even satisfied that Secretary of State Dean Rusk's most outrageous proposals were not adopted, since they would have proved unworkable anyway.
{A refreshing difference in the international capitalist camp over the role of the OAS was expressed by the Toronto Globe and Mail September 27. Inasmuch as the big Canadian daily hews to a Tory and therefore very conservative capitalist outlook, its dissent is all the more interesting. The full text of the editorial, "Not a club of equals," is as follows. ]
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Voting 20-0 with Mexico's eloquent abstention, the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States have asked all friendly countries to halt exports to (and imports from) Cuba until Havana stops exporting revolution. A highlight of the performance which helped to explain this impressive dénouement was Bolivia's striking use of stage props. These included photographs, fingerprints and documents which, seen from a distance, realistically conveyed the illusion that Castro's comrade Ché Guevara was leading rebels against the democratic regime of General René Barrientos: a U.S.-trained air force officer who first seized power in 1964 after a coup d'état.
Once again the wisdom of Canada's remaining outside the OAS has been demonstrated. The vote offends on four counts. First, it pushes weaker states that depend on U.S. aid, trade and investment into
upholding Washington's self~proclaimed right to play the policeman in the Western Hemisphere.
Second, the vote again stresses how dangerous it would be for Canada, if an OAS member, to be faced with the choice of publicly thwarting a policy that the United States holds to be vital, or of giving up our own policy of divorcing trade from politics. We have enough problems with the United States without throwing ourselves in its path on issues where it has proved less rational than in its bilateral dealings with us.
Third, the OAS vote proceeds, as usual, from a notion of "hemispheric solidarity" which substitutes a spurious geographic closeness for more meaningful economic and political affinities. Canada's natural economic and political solidarities do not lie with Latin America, but with the United States, Europe, the Commonwealth and, more and more recently, with Japan. Our future solidarity with Latin America, which we eagerly hope for, must grow not from arbitrary verbalizing but, like our other ties, from a spontaneous coincidence of interests.
Finally, and most distastefully,
the OAS vote underlines the enduring
sterility of the U.S. Latin-American
policies into which membership in the
Organization might fatally draw us. Con-
tainment, embargo, boycott, blacklisting
-- these are the familiar vehicles of a
bankrupt diplomacy, which tries to hide
behind pious posturing its utter lack of
either courage or imagination.
The time for Canada to join the
OAS depends on many factors, but on none
more than this: our country can play no
useful part until its hegemonic power,
the United States, decides to lead the
OAS in actively promoting democracy and
economic and social reform. As long as
Washington drags its regimented clientele
behind a chariot of debilitating anti-
Communism, we could expect, as members,
only to be dragooned from what we think
are truly relevant causes.
These do not include pandering to
dictators; they do include helping the
people of Latin America, as we do now
and should much more, through the non-
political Inter-American .
DOMINICAN PRD