MIAMI, United States. – The newly appointed United States ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Francisco Mora, said Thursday that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua “should not have a presence” in that multinational entity, according to reported the news agency EFE.
In a call with journalists, Mora assured that only countries with governments “that have been democratically elected” should have representation in the OAS.
“If we are going to commit to the OAS Charter (…), countries where these types of regimes exist should not have a presence” in the organization, the official insisted, alluding to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
However, he made the caveat that if “free and fair” elections were to take place in Venezuela as part of negotiations between the opposition and the Nicolás Maduro regime, the South American country could be welcomed back into the OAS.
“There is no reason to think that the next government that is elected after free elections (…) cannot return with a representative to the Permanent Council,” Mora said.
In 2017, the Nicolás Maduro regime formally requested Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OAS.
Likewise, Nicaragua began the process to leave the OAS in 2021. However, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the organization, Artur McFields, resigned from his position in April 2022 and denounced the Daniel Ortega regime for human rights violations.
The Havana regime, for its part, was excluded from the inter-American system in 1962 due to its adherence to the Soviet communist bloc and its confrontation with Washington. Although the members of the regional bloc annulled that decision in 2009, the Cuban government has not requested their reinstatement.
By the end of 2022, andhe United States Senate approved Francisco Mora, a diplomat of Cuban origin, as the country’s ambassador to the OAS.
In July 2021, Mora was nominated by President Joe Biden as ambassador to the OAS, replacing Carlos Trujillo, also a Cuban-American.
