Mexico: Guaido’s Envoy Appointment to OAS Against Own Charter

Mexico’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Jorge Lomonaco criticized Tuesday the decision taken by 18 out of 35 member states to recognize lawmaker Juan Guaido’s envoy as the Permanent Representative of Venezuela.

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"The adoption of this resolution is a pyrrhic victory for a group of countries, without real effects and with potentially negative consequences for the OAS and its institutionality," said Lomonaco after the voting. 

On Tuesday, the Permanent Council of the OAS, currently chaired by the United States, approved the resolution to accept Gustavo Tarre as the designated permanent representative of the Venezuelan National Assembly. A null appointment as the National Assembly is in contempt since 2016, thus lacking institutionality and legitimacy under sovereign law.

During the voting, nine countries sided against it those been: Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Dominica, Grenada, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela, with six abstentions. Yet the decision was approved with 18 votes in favor from right-wing governments siding with U.S interests such as Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Saint Lucia. 

To this, the Mexican Representative declared that "the so-called doctrine of 18 votes has been instituted (...) which has generated the precedent that a subsidiary body can question, with only 18 votes, sovereign decisions." The Uruguayan Ambassador, Hugo Cayrus, backed Mexico’s objection saying that they also “disagree that the Permanent Council is the corresponding body to address an issue of this magnitude.” Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia and Nicaragua also strongly objected after the vote.

According to the OAS charter, article 54, the General Assembly is the supreme organ the international body and it has as its principal powers “to decide the general action and policy of the Organization, determine the structure and functions of its organs, and consider any matter relating to friendly relations among the American States”, all done in an annual gathering headed by the respective Foreign Affairs Ministers of each member state.

Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza condemned the resolution in an official statement declaring that "this is one of the most unfortunate decisions made in this Organization's long history of legal and political outrages, a vulgar manipulation of blackmail and pressure against member states to satisfy the wishes of Washington's neo-Monroe doctrine."

Meanwhile, on April 2, Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations and official representative to the OAS, Samuel Moncada, said that his nation will leave the international organization on April 27 in defiance of the "racist ‘Monroe Doctrine’" and President Donald Trump’s continued attempts to "run over the countries of the continent" with the help of OAS leadership.