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addresses a Protocolary Session of the OAS Everlasting Council on the Event of Pan American Week. (April 17, 2023)
Keynote Remarks by
Particular Advisor Christopher Dodd
to Protocolary Session of the OAS Everlasting Council on the Event of Pan American Week
Monday, April 17, 2023
Mr. Secretary Normal, thanks for the great welcome. I’m privileged to be right here.
Thanks additionally Ambassador Washington Abdala — and to the distinguished members of the Everlasting Council, Everlasting Observers, Mr. Assistant Secretary Normal, OAS employees, and members of civil society — for the possibility to hitch you. At the moment marks 4 years to the date of our final celebration of Pan American historical past and cooperation.
I’m additionally delighted to be again on this lovely, historic constructing — the Home of the Americas, as it’s known as — for this session of the Council. On the event of Pan American Day and Pan American Week, I convey you heat greetings from President Joe Biden as his Particular Advisor for the Americas. I additionally wish to acknowledge the management of Ambassador Frank Mora, who we’re so happy to have on the OAS in the end.
It’s becoming to start right now by recalling that this 12 months marks the 240th anniversary of the start of the nice South American liberator Simon Bolivar – whose very best of hemispheric cooperation impressed the creation of our inter-American system.
In furtherance of Bolivar’s imaginative and prescient, on April 14, 1890, 18 nations of this hemisphere got here collectively to type the Worldwide Union of American Republics — the oldest regional worldwide group on the planet and the precursor to this, our fashionable Group of American States.
At the moment, the OAS consists of numerous unbiased States devoted to the ideas of advancing peace, improvement, safety, and democracy all through the Americas. On my method into this Corridor, I had the possibility to see the “Peace Tree” that President Taft planted under within the Aztec Patio. The Peace Tree continues to face as proof of the deep and robust roots of the OAS.
Let me be clear: Joe Biden, my good pal and President of the US — is a champion of this Group. He requested me to share with every of you a private pledge of his and the U.S. dedication to the OAS.
The US stays deeply invested in the way forward for the OAS and the Inter-American System. Colleagues and mates, I consider strongly that we have to as soon as once more recapture the spirit of Pan-Americanism that informs a lot of our shared historical past, and our area’s future future.
It should appear odd, even quaint, to speak about Pan-Americanism in mild of the variations we see within the area right now.
However the actuality is that regional integration is now a reality. In some methods we’re selling regional integration as governments, however in lots of cases, it’s occurring in markets, personal sector organizations, universities, NGOs, faith-based establishments, and by altering demographics. Clearly, as former Secretary of State John Kerry, my former Senate colleague, said on this corridor ten years in the past, “the period of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” However I might add, so is also the period of undervaluing the sources, each human and pure, that our Americas presents itself and the world.
Our area’s dynamic and built-in relationship was on show on the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles final June. The area’s leaders got here collectively to reaffirm shared targets — selling sustainability, resilience, and fairness throughout the hemisphere; advancing financial prosperity; strengthening democracies; mitigating the consequences of local weather change; fostering clear power transitions; creating extra resilient public well being infrastructure; rising entry to digital applied sciences; and defending probably the most susceptible amongst us.
Precedence U.S. initiatives to handle these widespread issues and alternatives embody the Americas Partnership for Financial Prosperity, the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Safety, the Americas Well being Corps, and the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Handle the Local weather Disaster 2030, or “PACC 2030,” which was launched by Vice President Harris ultimately 12 months’s Summit of the Americas, is our flagship initiative to advertise local weather adaptation and resilience, in addition to clear power packages throughout the Caribbean area and elsewhere. This complete, goal-oriented method is supporting our Caribbean neighbors and others with the urgency that this second calls for.
he Biden-Harris Administration’s Root Causes Technique was launched in July 2021 and is making crucial investments in addressing the drivers of migration from Central America, with a pointy give attention to good governance.
Our Name to Motion, a public-private partnership supporting long-term improvement in Central America, is a technique during which we’re serving to to create financial alternative within the area. To construct on momentum generated underneath this profitable initiative, Vice President Harris launched the subsequent chapter by asserting “Central America Ahead.” As of February 2023, firms inside Central America Ahead had dedicated greater than $4.2 billion in funding to the area.
Central America Ahead additionally consists of new U.S. authorities commitments to enhance personal sector investments within the area, together with a brand new U.S. Authorities Northern Central America Funding Facilitation Crew and commitments to fight corruption and defend labor rights within the area.
Mr. Chairman, as we work to maneuver ahead with all these efforts, we may also be internet hosting native leaders from all through the Western Hemisphere on the inaugural Cities Summit of the Americas in Denver, Colorado later this month, from April 26-28. Over 2,000 native leaders and organizations have registered for this two-day convention. We’re very happy to have the OAS engaged on this Summit on open authorities and regional migration. That is the primary time ever to carry such a summit of native leaders all through the Americas. Our efforts to enhance financial circumstances, strengthen safety measures, and promote democratic values, should not be left to heads of state but in addition embody efforts on the native stage all through the hemisphere.
And but, regardless of these advances, we all know there may be rising impatience for tangible progress within the area. Efforts by leaders to make democracy ship have fallen quick.
Because the premiere multilateral establishment within the Americas, many have seemed to the OAS to seek out options to political impasses – whereas others within the area proceed to query its viability and capability to handle threats.
• Mr. Chairman, our Pan-American – now our Inter-American — neighborhood is sure collectively and strengthened by numerous multilateral establishments, and so they too are indispensable to attaining our widespread aspirations.
Their focus and membership range – some embody the US as members and others don’t – however in each case, the effectiveness of those multilateral establishments relies upon upon members’ willingness to step up and meet their obligations. Right here on the OAS, this implies talking up and defending democracy anyplace when it’s underneath risk or assault.
Simply as we dedicated to do that previous 12 months in Los Angeles, and in line with the core mission of this Group, we should step up and advance the total implementation of the Inter-American Democratic Constitution.
That is what our leaders envisioned once we gathered 22 years in the past on that fateful and dreadful day of September eleventh of 2001 to undertake the Democratic Constitution.
Former President Jimmy Carter, an important pal of this Group who attended each OAS Normal Meeting in Washington and even hosted the Meeting in Atlanta in 1974 when he was the Governor of Georgia, underscored this level clearly in his speech inaugurating the primary Lecture Sequence of the Americas in 2005 earlier than this Council.
President Carter known as on “all governments of the hemisphere to make the Democratic Constitution greater than empty items of paper, to make it a dwelling doc. The constitution commits us to assist each other when our democratic establishments are threatened. The constitution is usually a punitive instrument, offering for sanctions when a severe problem to the democratic order happens, however it’s also an instrument for offering technical help and ethical encouragement to forestall democratic erosion early within the recreation. Allow us to strengthen the constitution and never be afraid to make use of it.”
Mr. Chairman, these phrases compel us to proceed to make progress and act. Now greater than ever. And so, the US seems to be to fellow OAS delegations to assist understand absolutely the Inter-American Motion Plan on Democratic Governance adopted on the Ninth Summit. We’re proud to be collaborating on efforts by the Everlasting Council that help extra proactive use of the Democratic Constitution and enhanced inter-parliamentary cooperation.
We additionally commend the efforts of the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights for highlighting threats to democracy and human rights within the area and for holding all of us, together with the US, to account. The U.S. was happy to welcome the Fee to California for its 186th interval of classes simply final month at UCLA.
We commend the Fee as a result of deepening respect for democratic governance, human rights, and basic freedoms is a high precedence for the US and President Biden.
Recognizing human rights at house is a crucial a part of the President’s international coverage imaginative and prescient – we are able to’t be credible advocates for democracy and human rights overseas if we’re not demonstrating our dedication to those ideas at residence.
The US is happy with the position we play in advancing human rights and basic freedoms within the Americas and throughout the globe. None of us is – however we try to reside as much as our highest beliefs and ideas.
We work to empower, defend, and carry up human rights defenders in all their types – and to counter repressive techniques in opposition to residents, dissidents, lecturers, journalists, and others focused by authoritarian regimes.
Final month, President Biden co-hosted the second Summit for Democracy , together with leaders from Costa Rica, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, and Zambia – the place we demonstrated that democracies can ship and are delivering for his or her individuals.
That gathering’s consequence declaration, which many OAS member states endorsed, underscored the next – and I quote: “freedom and democracy are strengthened by cooperation, and we decide to constructing stronger home, regional, and international partnerships which are extra assertive in countering authoritarianism and corruption and that show that democracy delivers peace, stability, and prosperity for all.”
President Biden and I thank the OAS and the Inter American Fee of Girls (the “CIM”) for supporting Summit for Democracy actions. As we have fun the seventy fifth anniversary of the CIM this 12 months and the visionary management of its first president, the Pan American feminist Doris Stevens, it’s wholly becoming that Summit members dedicated to redouble their efforts to “defend and uphold the human rights of all girls and ladies in all their variety” – cognizant that “girls’s rights are human rights.”
Mr. Chair, we additionally made main new commitments on the Summit for Democracy, together with President Biden’s announcement of as much as $690 million over the subsequent fiscal 12 months for the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal – supporting efforts at residence and world wide to make our democracies extra resilient, by bolstering democratic reformers and unbiased journalists, defending free and truthful elections, and advancing anti-corruption campaigns.
Colleagues, on the similar time, we should acknowledge that inclusive financial development stays important to safeguard democracy. With out job creation and funding, the fragility of democracy rapidly turns into obvious. Equally, with out safety and regulation enforcement, democracy turns into susceptible. Governments should present freedom from concern for its residents if democracy is to thrive. All of us perceive that democratic consolidation just isn’t potential with no dedication to inclusive financial development and citizen safety. Failure to acknowledge the interdependence ensures the everlasting fragility of democracy.”
Permit me to the touch on just a few particular challenges and alternatives we see impacting our method to the area and right here on the OAS.
I wish to commend the OAS’ latest efforts to establish methods to assist Haiti tackle its acute and deteriorating safety, political, and well being disaster. Haiti’s present lack of stability is crucial to the individuals of that nation and in addition necessary to our area.
There are some encouraging steps in Haiti — the February 6 appointment of the Excessive Transition Council and naming of Supreme Courtroom Judges.
The OAS is working exhausting to play a supportive position. However Haiti’s political events, civil society, diaspora, and personal sector should play a job on this course of, working collectively within the curiosity of the Haitian individuals.
Those that impede this technique of the welfare of the Haitian individuals will proceed to face the opportunity of U.S. sanctions. We additionally will proceed to offer help of humanitarian efforts to make sure susceptible teams have entry to meals, water, and well being companies.
We stay dedicated to working with our worldwide companions, together with by our vice-chairmanship of the brand new OAS Working Group on Haiti, to assist Haiti in combating gang violence and mitigate its safety threats, whereas creating the circumstances for Haiti’s political actors and different stakeholders to succeed in a political accord and maintain elections.
Mr. Chairman, the state of affairs in Nicaragua stays a severe concern for our Inter-American neighborhood. Whereas the US believes the latest resolution of the Nicaraguan authorities to launch political prisoners was a welcome step, it didn’t resolve our underlying issues concerning the deterioration of human rights and the rule of regulation.
In reality, the choice of the federal government of Nicaragua to revoke the citizenship and seize property of those political prisoners, in addition to these of a further 94 people and Bishop Rolando Álvarez, negates virtually any goodwill this launch might have generated by the Ortega-Murillo regime.
OAS member states should sustain the strain. We are going to work to make sure the adoption of a robust decision once more this 12 months on the June Normal Meeting.
We additionally proceed to face with the individuals of Venezuela, Mr. Chair. We be part of the worldwide neighborhood, together with the OAS, in welcoming the resumption of negotiations between the opposition and the Maduro regime.
We are going to do every little thing inside our capacity to assist Venezuela transfer towards the restoration of democracy. The Venezuelan individuals needs to be allowed to train their proper to decide on their leaders and transfer on from corruption and repression.
On the similar time, the Biden Administration will proceed to help efforts right here on the OAS to make sure the Maduro regime is held accountable for atrocities dedicated in opposition to Venezuelans.
We have now lengthy made clear our willingness to overview our sanctions posture based mostly on concrete steps towards a democratic resolution in Venezuela or to reimpose sanctions ought to the Maduro regime fail to comply with by on its commitments.
Let me additionally applaud OAS member states for standing in solidarity with Ukraine since Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion. This household of American democracies was one of many first multilateral our bodies outdoors of Europe to show its solidarity with Ukraine, together with suspending Russia from its membership as a Everlasting Observer.
I wish to say just a few phrases a few precept that continues to tell our work throughout the hemisphere and right here on the OAS — the significance of social inclusion.
Advancing racial fairness and justice in our international coverage is crucial to U.S. nationwide safety and the strengthening of democracies world wide. As democracy continues to open the door to sectors of societies which have been traditionally excluded, we’re lastly seeing — all through the Americas — an actual rethinking and re-understanding of what our nations signify.
For our half, on President Biden’s first day in workplace, he signed the Government Order “Advancing Racial Fairness and Assist for Underserved Communities By means of the Federal Authorities.”
At the moment our hemisphere stands at a pivotal crossroads. A rising technology – born within the Americas, making use of the applied sciences of the twenty first century, and enriched by the variety of multicultural societies – stands poised to steer within the years to return.
They’re urging our democracies and the OAS to handle problems with poverty, inequality, and social exclusion – and to take action inside a context that acknowledges that social justice is important for the longevity and really legitimacy of our political establishments.
The OAS should play an lively position in partaking these future leaders as champions of democratic and consultant establishments.
To additional help the training of our area’s younger individuals, I’m happy to announce right now a $250,000 contribution for supplementary scholarships — for eligible beneficiaries of the Leo Rowe Pan American Fund. This can allow extra college students from the Americas to review right here in the US. Throughout and following his tenure as Director Normal of the Pan American Union, Dr. Rowe was dedicated to fostering understanding throughout the Americas and selling training. The President and I are advocates of his enduring legacy.
In the end, the OAS is a product of who we’re as member states. That’s the reason we should come collectively to make sure the OAS can meet the challenges and seize the alternatives of the twenty first century. President Biden stands able to work with you.
And so, throughout Pan American Week, the President and I have fun our shut ties – but in addition urge nearer cooperation for a extra resilient, sustainable, and equitable future for all individuals within the Americas.
Permit me shut by quoting from former Vice President and Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller, the daddy of our Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau on the State Division.
Following Rockefeller’s historic research tour to twenty nations in 1969 to evaluate the state of U.S. relations with the area, he noticed that “the basic query for the US is the way it can cooperate to assist meet the fundamental wants of the individuals of the hemisphere regardless of philosophical disagreements … It should search pragmatic methods to assist individuals with out essentially embracing their governments.”
That evaluation stays related for right now’s hemisphere. We search to advance an inclusive agenda – based mostly on democratic self-determination – and by using a language of understanding, respect, and empathy. That is what all of us should convey to the desk, on the OAS and in our regional cooperation.
Thanks once more for together with me on this necessary session. President Biden and I want you a contented Pan American week — and we stay up for persevering with to work with all of your governments upfront of the OAS Normal Meeting.
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