When for­mer Uruguayan For­eign Min­is­ter Luis Alma­gro took the helm of the Orga­ni­za­tion for Amer­i­can States (OAS) in 2015, mem­bers of the U.S. Right despaired that the inter­gov­ern­men­tal body would be head­ed by yet anoth­er Latin Amer­i­can left­ist and friend of Washington’s foes. Four years lat­er, those same right-wing forces cheered as Alma­gro led the charge for the over­throw of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, and the OAS con­tributed to a coup in Bolivia.

The OAS has long been viewed as a tool of U.S. foreign influence, thanks in large part to the U.S. government’s outsized funding of the organization.

The OAS is a region­al forum of 34 states that acts some­thing like the Unit­ed Nations of the Amer­i­c­as. Alma­gro and the OAS have come under the spot­light in recent weeks, thanks to their con­tro­ver­sial role in Bolivia’s most recent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. After win­ning a fourth straight term last month, long­time indige­nous left­ist pres­i­dent Evo Morales left office and fled the coun­try in what appears to be a text­book coup: The head of the mil­i­tary called for his res­ig­na­tion, as vio­lence against his sup­port­ers surged. The OAS has fall­en under increas­ing crit­i­cism in recent weeks, after its con­test­ed claims of irreg­u­lar­i­ties and ​“clear manip­u­la­tions” by the Morales side were used by the oppo­si­tion, both Boli­vian and Amer­i­can, to inval­i­date the elec­tion results — and inten­si­fy pres­sure to oust Morales.

“The OAS took a polit­i­cal deci­sion, not a tech­ni­cal or legal one,” Morales charged from Mex­i­co, where he had been grant­ed asy­lum after pro­test­ers ran­sacked his home and kid­napped and abused his allies. ​“The OAS is in the ser­vice of the North Amer­i­can empire.”

The OAS came under sim­i­lar crit­i­cism from the Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic and Pol­i­cy Research (CEPR), a left-lean­ing eco­nom­ic think-tank based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., which dis­put­ed the OAS’ claims of elec­tion fraud. ​“There is sim­ply no sta­tis­ti­cal or evi­den­tiary basis to dis­pute the vote count results show­ing that Evo Morales won in the first round,” CEPR Senior Pol­i­cy Ana­lyst Guil­laume Long said on Novem­ber 8, releas­ing a paper that showed a step-by-step break­down dis­put­ing the con­clu­sions of OAS.

This inci­dent is just the lat­est in Almagro’s con­tro­ver­sial posi­tion as sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the OAS, elect­ed by a major­i­ty of mem­ber states, a posi­tion he hopes to con­tin­ue for anoth­er five years after his cur­rent term expires in May 2020. Alma­gro start­ed his career in Uruguay’s con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­tics before sud­den­ly mor­ph­ing into a com­mit­ted Pink Tider, and he once again changed his tune upon becom­ing OAS sec­re­tary gen­er­al. This shift is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in his wide­ly-crit­i­cized oppo­si­tion to Maduro — a devel­op­ment suc­ces­sive U.S. admin­is­tra­tions have been eager to take advan­tage of to pur­sue their inter­ests through an orga­ni­za­tion they wor­ry they’ve lost con­trol of.

Per­sis­tent U.S. influence

The OAS has long been viewed as a tool of U.S. for­eign influ­ence, thanks in large part to the U.S. government’s out­sized fund­ing of the orga­ni­za­tion. Even as late as 2018, the U.S. pro­vid­ed 60% of the institution’s annu­al budget.

From the begin­ning, the U.S. wield­ed sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence over the orga­ni­za­tion, which exclud­ed Cuba from because its ​“Marx­ist-Lenin­ist gov­ern­ment” was ​“incom­pat­i­ble with the prin­ci­ples and objec­tives of the inter-Amer­i­can sys­tem,” as the OAS put it. The sub­se­quent decades would see a range of auto­crat­ic — even geno­ci­dal — gov­ern­ments remain mem­bers of the OAS, while the U.S. most­ly made a mock­ery of its prin­ci­ples, as when Ronald Rea­gan vio­lat­ed its charter’s ban on the use of armed forces against a fel­low mem­ber with his administration’s 1983 inva­sion of Grenada.

U.S. influ­ence over the OAS deplet­ed dur­ing the post-Cold War era, and the vast major­i­ty of the OAS’ work in observ­ing elec­tions was above board. But the U.S. could still exert influ­ence in strate­gic moments. Dur­ing the 2009 coup in Hon­duras, then-Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton leaned on the OAS to back new elec­tions and keep oust­ed Pres­i­dent Manuel Zelaya from return­ing to pow­er — or as she put it in her mem­oir, ​“ren­der the ques­tion of Zelaya moot.”

Despite its weak­en­ing influ­ence, there is broad acknowl­edge­ment with­in the U.S. gov­ern­ment that the OAS con­tin­ues to be a vehi­cle for U.S. interests.

“The Unit­ed States his­tor­i­cal­ly has sought to use the OAS to advance eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal and secu­ri­ty objec­tives in the West­ern Hemi­sphere,” a 2014 Con­gres­sion­al report states. ​“The organization’s goals and day-to-day activ­i­ties are still gen­er­al­ly con­sis­tent with U.S. pol­i­cy toward the region, but the U.S. gov­ern­ment has strug­gled to obtain sup­port from oth­er mem­ber states on some high-pro­file issues.”

Like­wise, a 2018 GAO report found that ​“the strate­gic goals of the OAS” and oth­er U.S.-financed orga­ni­za­tions ​“are pre­dom­i­nant­ly aligned with the strate­gic goals of State, USAID, HHS, and USDA. These goals include ​“a secure and demo­c­ra­t­ic future for all cit­i­zens in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean,” ​“expand­ed eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty and pros­per­i­ty for the hemi­sphere,” and a ​“pub­lic opin­ion envi­ron­ment that is sup­port­ive of U.S. pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives,” the report states.

A right­ward shift

When Luis Alma­gro became OAS Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary in March 2015, it at first appeared he would push against these his­tor­i­cal trends. From 2010 on, Alma­gro had served as the for­eign min­is­ter for the Uruguyan gov­ern­ment head­ed by Jose ​“Pepe” Muji­ca, part of the Pink Tide of left­ist gov­ern­ments that had swept to pow­er in Latin Amer­i­ca at the dawn of the 21st cen­tu­ry. Upon being nom­i­nat­ed to helm the OAS, Mujica’s gov­ern­ment spent no small amount of polit­i­cal cap­i­tal mak­ing sure Alma­gro won. Alma­gro lat­er said Muji­ca had ​“played a deci­sive role.” When his sole rival dropped out of the con­test due to health con­cerns, Alma­gro ascend­ed to the position.

This was unhap­py news to con­ser­v­a­tives. Under Muji­ca, Alma­gro had pushed to revoke the 1986 amnesty law pro­tect­ing Uruguay’s for­mer mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship from pros­e­cu­tion for crimes against human­i­ty, react­ed to Osama Bin Laden’s 2011 assas­si­na­tion by say­ing ​“no death should be cel­e­brat­ed,” and joined Bolivia, Brazil and Argenti­na in call­ing for recog­ni­tion of a Pales­tin­ian state in 2010. But most wor­ry­ing to the Right was his atti­tude toward Venezuela: On the first anniver­sary of for­mer Pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez’s death, Alma­gro declared Chavez had ​“rein­vent­ed Latin Amer­i­ca.” And when Maduro’s gov­ern­ment clashed with pro­test­ers and vio­lent right-wing forces in 2014, Alma­gro blamed ​“both sides” for the ensu­ing violence.

Sev­er­al con­ser­v­a­tive news­pa­pers and think tanks raised alarm about his sup­port for Chav­is­mo. Right-lean­ing Mia­mi Her­ald colum­nist Andres Oppen­heimer warned that Alma­gro and one oth­er can­di­date were ​“caus­ing con­cern — and in some cas­es, alarm — in inter­na­tion­al cir­cles for the defense of human rights.” Oppen­heimer wrote that Alma­gro was ​“Venezuela’s favorite,” warn­ing of his ​“close ties with Iran,” owing to the five years he had spent in the Uruguayan embassy in Tehran. Sonia Oso­rio, colum­nist with the El Nue­vo Her­ald, a Span­ish-lan­guage paper in Flori­da, like­wise called him ​“a diplo­mat with close ties to Chav­is­mo who also main­tains wor­ry­ing rela­tions with Iran.”

Upon ascend­ing to the head of the OAS, Alma­gro appeared to con­firm con­ser­v­a­tives’ fears. He con­tin­ued his elec­tion-promise call for Cuba’s rein­te­gra­tion into the OAS. In August 2015, he announced he ​“deplore[d] the acts of the [OAS] that val­i­dat­ed” the 1965 U.S. inva­sion of the Domini­can Repub­lic, ​“twist­ing the sov­er­eign path cho­sen by its peo­ple.” Pledg­ing ear­ly on to ​“leave the OAS behind the Cold War,” he promised to return the OAS to ​“a cred­i­bil­i­ty that every­one demands,” and be the ​“facil­i­ta­tor of its renewal.”

But his choice of tran­si­tion team hint­ed at the direc­tion he would end up going. Besides Luis Por­to, a Uruguayan econ­o­mist who had served in var­i­ous posi­tions under Muji­ca, Almagro’s tran­si­tion to the new post was also head­ed by Dan Restre­po. Obama’s Latin Amer­i­ca advis­er, Restre­po has a long his­to­ry with the cor­po­rate-fund­ed lib­er­al think tank Cen­ter for Amer­i­can Progress (CAP), and he con­tin­ued to advise Alma­gro for at least the next year.

As spe­cial coun­sel to Wash­ing­ton law firm Jones Walk­er LLP since 2014 — a year before head­ing Almagro’s tran­si­tion, and a posi­tion he still holds today — Restre­po works ​“on behalf of a wide range of clients, includ­ing multi­na­tion­al media and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, inde­pen­dent ener­gy pro­duc­ers, pri­vate equi­ty funds, major con­sumer prod­ucts com­pa­nies, major infra­struc­ture com­pa­nies, and glob­al law firms,” accord­ing to his bio on the firm’s site. While those clients aren’t list­ed, some of Jones Walker’s lob­by­ing clients over the past five years includ­ed Cit­i­group, JP Mor­gan Chase, Sasol Chem­i­cals, tobac­co com­pa­ny Pyxus Inter­na­tion­al, and oil-drilling com­pa­ny Her­cules Off­shore Inc. These are all exact­ly the kinds of firms that have itched to access the vast nat­ur­al wealth of Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries gov­erned by left­ist pop­ulists like Chavez and Morales

Provo­ca­tions towards Maduro

It took many months for Alma­gro to become more bull­ish on Venezuela, fol­low­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s repeat­ed rejec­tion of his offer to send OAS elec­tion observers to the coun­try. Novem­ber 2015 saw Alma­gro send a harsh­ly word­ed let­ter to the pres­i­dent of the country’s Nation­al Elec­toral Coun­cil, crit­i­ciz­ing the upcom­ing elec­toral process and warn­ing it lacked ​“trans­paren­cy and elec­toral jus­tice.” The let­ter prompt­ed pub­lic reproach from Muji­ca, who rebuked ​“the direc­tion” Alma­gro was tak­ing, and for­mal­ly told him ​“good­bye.” The let­ter also gar­nered pub­lic praise from hawk­ish Rep. Eliot Engel (D‑N.Y.), chair­man of the House Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs. Despite Almagro’s pre­emp­tive efforts to cast the elec­tions as ille­git­i­mate, the Venezue­lan oppo­si­tion won in a land­slide, secur­ing a two-thirds super­ma­jor­i­ty in the Nation­al Assem­bly with which they vowed to force Maduro from office.

A series of tit-for-tat esca­la­tions between the gov­ern­ment and the oppo­si­tion spi­raled out of con­trol over the next few years. The Maduro gov­ern­ment and its loy­al­ist-con­trolled Supreme Court took increas­ing­ly author­i­tar­i­an steps to nul­li­fy the opposition’s exist­ing and future elec­toral gains. And the oppo­si­tion resort­ed to alarm­ing mea­sures and con­tin­ued use of vio­lence to foment a cri­sis it could use to achieve its long­stand­ing goal of oust­ing Maduro and revers­ing Chav­is­mo. Rather than choose a path of diplo­ma­cy to help end the cri­sis, Alma­gro chose a more provoca­tive approach, sid­ing with the country’s vio­lent, right-wing opposition.

As Hen­ry Ramos Allup, the oppo­si­tion head of Venezuela’s Nation­al Assem­bly, called for the OAS to take a tougher posi­tion, Alma­gro put out a scathing 132-page report that backed the oppo­si­tions’ calls for a recall ref­er­en­dum. Alma­gro also invoked the OAS’ Demo­c­ra­t­ic Char­ter, sug­gest­ing Venezuela could be sus­pend­ed from the orga­ni­za­tion. Alma­gro engaged repeat­ed­ly in an inflam­ma­to­ry war of words with Maduro, respond­ing to his insults by call­ing him a ​“pet­ty dic­ta­tor” and a ​“trai­tor.” Pri­or to a July OAS debate over the recall, Alma­gro met with Allup, and Almagro’s effort to pass the recall was backed by a num­ber of right-wing for­mer Latin Amer­i­can pres­i­dents, includ­ing Peru’s Ale­jan­dro Tole­do, Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe, and Cos­ta Rica’s Lau­ra Chinchilla.

The gov­ern­ments of coun­tries like Ecuador, Argenti­na and Chile, in turn, raised con­cerns about Almagro’s ​“sys­tem­at­ic aggres­sions” against the coun­try. When Alma­gro pushed for the recall at a meet­ing of the OAS per­ma­nent coun­cil, mem­ber states reject­ed his call for a more intense inter­ven­tion in Venezuela, instead urg­ing dia­logue. Accord­ing to CEPR Direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Pol­i­cy Alexan­der Main, mem­ber states reject­ed his call for a more intense inter­ven­tion in Venezuela, instead urg­ing dia­logue. Main told The Real News Net­work that Alma­gro would become ​“an instru­ment of the [U.S.] state department…to inter­vene in the inter­nal affairs of mem­ber states.” In June 2016, the for­eign min­is­ter of Venezuela — whose back­ing from OAS mem­ber states had by this point tak­en a ding thanks to Maduro’s actions — urged the OAS Gen­er­al Assem­bly to put a break on Almagro’s actions. She received a round of applause.

But per­haps most con­tro­ver­sial was Almagro’s rela­tion­ship with Leopol­do López, the right-wing leader of the Venezue­lan oppo­si­tion then under house arrest. In August 2016, Alma­gro wrote a trea­cly eight-page let­ter to his ​“esteemed friend Leopol­do,” telling López he ​“felt immense­ly close to the injus­tice you are suf­fer­ing.” López was ​“one of the few” exam­ples of ​“pub­lic great­ness,” Alma­gro lat­er wrote. In July 2017, the two had a pub­li­cized phone con­ver­sa­tion, agree­ing ​“to con­tin­ue work­ing for the return of democ­ra­cy to Venezuela and the recov­ery of the rights of the Venezue­lan peo­ple,” accord­ing to an OAS state­ment.

Far from the Gand­hi-like fig­ure paint­ed by Alma­gro, how­ev­er, López is an elite scion with Repub­li­can ties who was described by a diplo­mat in Cara­cas as a ​“divi­sive fig­ure with­in the oppo­si­tion” who is ​“arro­gant, vin­dic­tive, and pow­er-hun­gry.” More alarm­ing­ly, he had backed and played a role in the 2002 mil­i­tary coup against the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed Chavez.

This all stood in stark con­trast to the 2016 removal of Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rous­eff by a cor­rupt right-wing oppo­si­tion via impeach­ment, wide­ly char­ac­ter­ized as a ​“par­lia­men­tary coup.” The OAS con­clud­ed in April 2016 that Rousseff’s impeach­ment ​“does not fit with­in the rules that gov­ern this process.” But in prac­tice, the organization’s response to her removal was mut­ed com­pared to Venezuela, with the OAS only express­ing only vague ​“con­cern.”

In con­cert with a far-right Trump admin­is­tra­tion, Alma­gro has con­tin­ued to inten­si­fy pres­sure on the coun­try, and esca­late Venezuela’s eco­nom­ic and human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis through a bru­tal series of sanc­tions. As the Trump admin­is­tra­tion worked with oppo­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do to this end, Alma­gro tweet­ed in Jan­u­ary 2019, ​“We con­grat­u­late [Guai­do] as Pres­i­dent in charge of Venezuela. He has our full sup­port and recog­ni­tion to push the return of his coun­try to democ­ra­cy.” Guia­do, who even­tu­al­ly vowed to pur­sue a pro­gram of neolib­er­al­iza­tion, was described by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press as ​“a loy­al acolyte of López for years,” coor­di­nat­ing his speech­es and deci­sions with López, with whom he spoke half a dozen times a day.

Alma­gro spoke in 2018 to the Inter­na­tion­al Coali­tion for Venezuela — a group formed part­ly by for­mer oppo­si­tion leader Pablo Med­i­na, who once called for Chavez to be ​“inves­ti­gat­ed for trea­son.” Dur­ing the address, Alma­gro crit­i­cized nego­ti­a­tions between Maduro and the oppo­si­tion that were hap­pen­ing at the time. ​“No elec­tion that comes out of this dic­ta­tor­ship, under these con­di­tions, will bring a polit­i­cal change for the peo­ple of Venezuela,” he said, adding: ​“We have no time for short and weak steps.”

He insist­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2018 the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty ​“should not rule out any action” to alle­vi­ate Venezue­lan suf­fer­ing, includ­ing ​“mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion aimed at over­throw­ing the régime.” He repeat­ed this call in 2019, invok­ing com­par­isons with Rwan­dan geno­cide to argue that mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion against Venezuela could be jus­ti­fied under inter­na­tion­al law. Alma­gro even appeared to back a mil­i­tary over­throw, when Guai­do ral­lied Venezue­lan mil­i­tary sup­port­ers at an air base in Cara­cas in April 2019. ​“We wel­come the adhe­sion of the mil­i­tary to the Con­sti­tu­tion and to the Pres­i­dent in charge of #Venezuela @jguaido,” he tweet­ed on April 30.

Mean­while, Alma­gro jet­ti­soned his ear­li­er attempts at rap­proche­ment with Cuba. He has labelled the Cubans in Venezuela, many of whom are doc­tors, ​“an occu­pa­tion force that teach­es how to tor­ture and repress, that per­forms intel­li­gence, civ­il iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and migra­tion ser­vices.” In 2018, as the Trump admin­is­tra­tion reversed his predecessor’s con­cil­ia­to­ry approach to the coun­try in favor of anoth­er eco­nom­ic squeeze, Alma­gro omi­nous­ly intoned that ​“we can­not allow the Cuban peo­ple to con­tin­ue to be oppressed by an infa­mous dictatorship.”

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the right wing that once despaired over Almagro’s elec­tion also did a U‑turn. Luis Fleis­chman is an advi­sor to the Menges Hemi­spher­ic Secu­ri­ty Project in Wash­ing­ton — part of the far-right think tank Cen­ter for Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, run by the vir­u­lent­ly anti-immi­grant Frank Gaffney. In Novem­ber 2017, Fleish­man praised Almagro’s his ​“exem­plary lead­er­ship,” call­ing him ​“the most out­stand­ing and hero­ic voice fight­ing for democ­ra­cy in Venezuela.” Fleis­chman report­ed that Alma­gro had said, ​“If there is any chance of restor­ing democ­ra­cy in Venezuela, it is in the hands of the U.S., whose sanc­tions can hit the régime hard.”

Those sanc­tions were cal­cu­lat­ed by the CEPR as hav­ing caused 40,000 extra deaths in Venezuela from 2017 to 2018. And on August 8, Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er and for­mer Chilean Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet deter­mined that the sanc­tions were deep­en­ing the country’s eco­nom­ic cri­sis. Yet Alma­gro main­tained it was ​“ridicu­lous” to blame the sanc­tions for Venezue­lans’ suf­fer­ing, and crit­i­cized Bachelet’s words as ​“anoth­er sanc­tion against the Venezue­lan people.”

“She should have start­ed off by say­ing that the prin­ci­pal prob­lem that affects the Venezue­lan peo­ple are the thieves who are part of the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment,” he said. ​“The attempts to appease an infa­mous dic­ta­tor­ship … are tru­ly inconceivable.”

Shift­ing loyalties

What account­ed for Almagro’s dra­mat­ic about-face?

One must first look at the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion of the OAS. The orga­ni­za­tion had been run­ning deficits for years, not helped by the fact that some of its major con­trib­u­tors, like Venezuela and Brazil, had often failed to pay their dues. Peter Quil­ter, the OAS’ for­mer sec­re­tary for admin­is­tra­tion and finance, described the OAS in 2018 as oper­at­ing ​“in the con­text of a full-blown finan­cial cri­sis,” with ​“noth­ing left to cut” but staff.

This threat­ened both Almagro’s stat­ed goal of turn­ing the OAS’ focus on human rights and reviv­ing it into a new­ly promi­nent influ­en­tial body. Fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing this was that U.S. law­mak­ers, hos­tile to Venezuela and strug­gling to see the point of an orga­ni­za­tion that reg­u­lar­ly defied U.S. geopo­lit­i­cal goals, open­ly ques­tioned whether they should keep fund­ing the OAS. This includ­ed the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, which float­ed large cuts to inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions upon com­ing into office.

The oth­er is Almagro’s own polit­i­cal his­to­ry. In Jan­u­ary 2016, Anto­nio Mer­cad­er, right-lean­ing colum­nist and for­mer Uruguayan ambas­sador to the OAS, wrote that no one should have been sur­prised, since ​“polit­i­cal zigzag­ging is a con­stant in Almagro’s career.” He was involved in the con­ser­v­a­tive Divisa Blan­ca par­ty that sup­port­ed mil­i­tary amnesty, and was a mem­ber of the cen­ter-right Nation­al Par­ty before join­ing Mujica’s Broad Front coali­tion of left-wing par­ties. Con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cian and for­mer Nation­al Par­ty can­di­date, Luis Lacalle Pou, looked dim­ly on Almagro’s 180 degree turn on Venezuela, stat­ing in 2016, ​“Such rapid changes are not credible.”

Mean­while, Almagro’s own par­ty reject­ed his approach. Tabaré Vázquez, who pre­ced­ed and then suc­ceed­ed Muji­ca as Uruguayan pres­i­dent and Broad Front leader, and is con­sid­ered a cen­trist on both the domes­tic and for­eign pol­i­cy fronts, said in 2016, ​“We dis­agree with the atti­tude he has tak­en” in regards to Venezuela. Vázquez, whose term ends March 1, 2020, has tact­ful­ly declined to sup­port Almagro’s re-elec­tion to the posi­tion as of August. Alma­gro has, how­ev­er, received the back­ing of the U.S.

Not a neu­tral arbiter

Mean­while, the U.S. government’s rela­tion­ship to the OAS is more com­plex than many assume. U.S. offi­cials acknowl­edge that U.S. influ­ence over the orga­ni­za­tion has waned since its hal­cy­on days dur­ing the Cold War, par­tic­u­lar­ly once the Chavez gov­ern­ment used its nation­al­ized oil indus­try to weak­en Latin Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic depen­dence on the U.S., and once the Pink Tide has­tened a turn away from the neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic poli­cies still favored by U.S. officials.

Under Trump, how­ev­er — and with Alma­gro at the helm — U.S. offi­cials have begun mov­ing away from their dis­ap­point­ment with the OAS to dis­cussing how they can bet­ter use the orga­ni­za­tion to meet their goals. In Feb­ru­ary 2018, the House For­eign Affairs Committee’s Sub­com­mit­tee on the West­ern Hemi­sphere held a hear­ing on ​“Advanc­ing U.S. Inter­ests Through the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States,” where com­mit­tee mem­ber Rep. Albio Sires (D‑N.J.) said he was ​“eager to hear from our pan­el on how we can improve engage­ment with the OAS and bet­ter enable them to be the leader in the region.”

When asked ​“where is its use­ful­ness” by Sires, the for­mer OAS sec­re­tary for admin­is­tra­tion and finance, Peter Quil­ter, explained how to strate­gi­cal­ly make use of the organization’s var­i­ous bod­ies and respon­si­bil­i­ties, includ­ing elec­tion mon­i­tor­ing. ​“For a coun­try like the U.S., the trick is to uti­lize or to try to get as much done with­in each of these — each of these — with each of these tools at it can,” he said. ​“I actu­al­ly think the OAS has done a decent amount of things on Venezuela,” he added, point­ing to, among oth­er things, the 2017 res­o­lu­tion and Almagro’s statements.

“Per­haps that’s as far as we could go as the U.S. on that issue,” he con­tin­ued. ​“So you put a momen­tary stop on that and you look at oth­er issues and try and keep advanc­ing the call. I think that is the way to uti­lize these organizations.”

Rep. Adri­ano Espail­lat (D‑N.Y.) resolved, ​“We must regain the abil­i­ty to invest in the region so that we could, again, fill that vac­u­um and we do not yield that vac­u­um to a coun­try that is already very much present there.”

The strat­e­gy out­lined in this hear­ing is the one both U.S. offi­cials under both Oba­ma and Trump have pur­sued with respect to the OAS. Almagro’s actions on Venezuela have been backed by mem­bers of Con­gress, both in words and in offi­cial res­o­lu­tions, while the U.S. gov­ern­ment has used Almagro’s lead­er­ship as a way to put pres­sure on Maduro’s gov­ern­ment while remov­ing the taint of West­ern imperialism.

“If it’s the U.S. ver­sus Venezuela, that plays into Maduro’s hands,” one senior Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said in 2016. ​“It has to be led by Latin Amer­i­cans. It can’t be led by us.”

This pol­i­cy has con­tin­ued under Trump, with right-wing gov­ern­ment offi­cials and mem­bers of Con­gress back­ing Almagro’s efforts or using his state­ments to push for remov­ing Maduro. Sen. Mar­co Rubio (R‑Fla.), who in 2019 led the administration’s con­cert­ed effort to foment the over­throw of Maduro, pub­licly threat­ened to cut for­eign aid to Haiti, Domini­can Repub­lic and El Sal­vador if they didn’t vote with Almagro’s attempt to sus­pend Venezuela from the OAS. In Jan­u­ary 2019, Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo cit­ed a let­ter writ­ten by Alma­gro about the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela to urge the Unit­ed Nations to hold a for­mal ses­sion on the cri­sis. It has done so selec­tive­ly, ignor­ing even the mild expres­sions of ​“con­cern” from the OAS over events in Brazil.

This played into what appears to have been long-run­ning antipa­thy between Alma­gro and the Morales gov­ern­ment, which has been at log­ger­heads with the OAS over Venezuela. Morales’ gov­ern­ment, togeth­er with that of Nicaragua, had demand­ed Almagro’s res­ig­na­tion over his 2016 132-page report on Maduro’s rule, and called his 2017 attempt to invoke the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Char­ter a coup d’é­tat inside the OAS. Morales’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the OAS in 2017 called Alma­gro ​“an offi­cial at the ser­vice of the inter­ven­tion­ist poli­cies of the Unit­ed States.”

Once the elec­tion final­ly took place, the OAS’ wide­ly crit­i­cized press release alleg­ing unsub­stan­ti­at­ed ​“clear manip­u­la­tions” was seized upon by media, the Boli­vian right-wing oppo­si­tion and the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to push for Morales’ ouster. Lever­ag­ing the legit­i­ma­cy of the OAS, the claim that Morales was a dic­ta­tor who had stolen the elec­tion was trans­formed into an estab­lished fact, with the OAS press release and, even­tu­al­ly, its report cit­ed as evidence.

The OAS — just as it had with Brazil — has been curi­ous­ly mut­ed about events in Bolivia since Morales’ ouster. The orga­ni­za­tion put out a sin­gle, 101-word state­ment on Novem­ber 11, the day after, reject­ing ​“any uncon­sti­tu­tion­al res­o­lu­tion of the sit­u­a­tion.” It called ​“for peace and respect for the Rule of Law,” request­ed an urgent meet­ing of the Pluri­na­tion­al Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly of Bolivia for a new elec­tion, and stressed the impor­tance of con­tin­u­ing to inves­ti­gate Morales’ alleged ​“crimes relat­ed to the elec­toral process.” As Bolivia’s new, sup­pos­ed­ly inter­im gov­ern­ment vio­lent­ly repressed and killed indige­nous pro­test­ers, and its new com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor threat­ened to pros­e­cute reporters ​“involved in sedi­tion,” Alma­gro issued yet anoth­er state­ment demand­ing Cuba ​“stop repress­ing” its peo­ple, while relay­ing he had met with Bolivia’s new right-wing pres­i­dent. In an inter­view about the cri­sis on Novem­ber 16, Alma­gro took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to blame Morales for seek­ing a fourth term, some­thing he has pre­vi­ous­ly backed.

Under Alma­gro, the OAS has nei­ther been a neu­tral arbiter nor con­sis­tent voice for democ­ra­cy and human rights. Rather, it has aligned itself with the U.S. gov­ern­ment, includ­ing once the U.S. fell under a racist, far-right admin­is­tra­tion. And Alma­gro has been selec­tive­ly bull­ish in his sup­posed pro-democ­ra­cy efforts — in the direc­tion of replac­ing the rem­nants of Latin America’s Pink Tide with right-wing forces more friend­ly to West­ern busi­ness inter­ests. With Alma­gro look­ing to head the OAS until at least 2025, Venezuela and Bolivia may only be the beginning.