By Peter Richards
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Albert Ramdin, the 67-year-old Foreign Affairs Minister of Suriname, is a very confident person, so much so that he believes that on March 10, he will be elected as the new Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Ramdin is coming up against Rubén Ramírez, the Foreign Minister of Paraguay, in a bid to succeed Luis Almagro, who was first elected as OAS Secretary General in 2015 and re-elected in 2020.
He has brushed aside negative media comments, including one implicating him in human trafficking activities. Ramdin said he is aware of the allegation, but added the write “is known to us in Suriname.
“He has been criticising everybody including the President (Chandrikapersad “Chan” Santokhi). We wanted to sue him for making false allegations. Lawyers said don’t waste time, nobody takes him on,” Ramdin said.
A third person, Arnaldo André, the foreign minister of Costa Rica, has entered the contest as an unofficial candidate and has recently published a manifesto in Spanish, outlining his vision for the Organization.
Political observers note that the government of Costa Rica has the right to propose André’s candidacy up to the day of the election on March 10, but he is unlikely to garner much support.
Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the OAS, Sir Ronald Sanders, in his weekly newspaper column, said the next secretary-general must possess more than diplomatic credentials.
“He (there is no female candidate) must have a firm grasp of the Organization’s operational needs, financial constraints, and institutional challenges. He must also be prepared to lead with resilience, innovation, and a clear vision for revitalising the OAS at a time of diminishing resources,” Sir Ronald wrote.
Ramdin is no stranger to the OAS, having served for several years as its assistant secretary general. He is hoping to become the first CARICOM national to be elected to the top post of the 35-member grouping of independent states of the Americas that seek to establish and maintain peace and justice, promote solidarity, strengthen collaboration, and defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.
So far he has received the endorsement of the 15-member CARICOM countries, of which 14 are OAS members. The other CARICOM country, Montserrat, is a British Overseas Territory.
“The endorsement of CARICOM, done and reaffirmed several times, is of critical importance. We as a region, are united and as such, it demonstrates the commitment as well, of CARICOM to aspire to this high-level position,” Ramdin told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) ahead of the March 10 election.
“We are very confident not only because CARICOM has endorsed, which is important, 14 members out of 32, it’s a large part of the organisation. But beyond that, we have countries like Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras also supporting us.
“And I can tell you that beyond that, we have three other major South American countries who I can’t name now because they have to announce it on their own, are supporting us. So that takes us over the required 18 votes which we need to be elected.
“But let’s be realistic at the same time, elections are only real and final when they’re run. So, I’m going to continue working till the last minute to make sure that our message gets across together with CARICOM representatives who will be present in Washington, DC on the 10th of March,” he added.
Ramdin served as OAS assistant secretary general between 2005-2015, when José Miguel Insulza was the OAS Secretary General and he believes his new message to the multilateral institution in which the United States, as a full member state, exercises direct influence in decision-making processes, will help members deal with a changing global environment.
“Well, there are three key issues, I believe, which we have to focus on. One is the issue of multilateralism; the issue of international collaboration seems to be somewhat under threat. And by this, I mean that the collectivity which we used to have as an OAS, although there are different opinions on different matters, but that collectivity has weakened,” Ramdin said.
He insists that this is not a development only in the Western Hemisphere.
“Globally, we see also that the United Nations has been weakened in terms of its effectiveness and its ability to act on principles and conventions which were accepted as a collectivity for many, many decades”.
Ramdin says there are two major conflicts in the world currently, and it’s still a difficult thing to find peace and find at least a temporary ceasefire at times. He is happy that in the Americas, “we don’t have open conflicts.
“We don’t have wars anymore in the Western Hemisphere for many decades. We want to keep that as is. For that, you need an institution that is relevant, that is important, and that is also accepted by member states as a useful multilateral tool, instrument to discuss issues, to basically iron out differences and to build on something going forward, which is going to be a form of collaboration and joint action.
“Now that sentiment, many believe the OAS has weakened in that sense as well, and a lot has to do with the type of leadership and the type of organisation which has been established.”
So, his first assignment, if elected, is to strengthen the organisation, reform it.
“There is a reform report already done by external consultants. The priorities have to be set by the member states, but that’s the first thing we need to do to improve on the stature the OAS used to have as an honest broker.
“We can’t take sides in conflicts. Otherwise, you’re not an honest broker, and those things have gone wrong, in my view, in the past 10 years. From my own experience, when I was there…together with Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, we were always engaged.
“We had a dialogue with member states. We had to dialogue with different groups and societies. So that is a role the leadership of the OAS should play to facilitate a process of resolution, of strength and of collaboration.”
Ramdin acknowledges that getting back to that environment “will take a lot of time, because one country has left the OAS, another country says they have left the OAS, but it’s still a matter of understanding exactly juridically what is the case. But those are not good things when organisations leave a multilateral framework.”
While he did not name the countries, Ramdin was no doubt making reference to Venezuela and Cuba.
Venezuela is a member of the OAS, but it denounced the OAS Charter in April 2017. According to Article 143 of the OAS Charter, Venezuela would withdraw from the OAS two years after the notification date. But In 2019, Juan Guaidó, whom the United States and many other countries had regarded as the acting president of Venezuela, requested to remain a member.
The OAS has struggled to investigate human rights abuses in Venezuela. In 2020, the OAS General Assembly condemned Venezuela for undermining democracy.
Despite being a founding member of the OAS, Cuba, was effectively suspended from January 31, 1962, to June 3, 2009, when the foreign ministers of OAS member countries at OAS’s 39th General Assembly in Honduras passed a vote to lift Cuba’s suspension.
But the government in Havana, while welcoming the resolution said in light of the organization’s historical record “Cuba will not return to the OAS”.
While he would not be drawn into extensive discussions regarding Cuba and Venezuela, Ramdin notes also that “we, as a country, and I’m part of the Caribbean, we have diplomatic relations with the country, with the state of Venezuela, and many countries have that.
“We know that there is an issue in Venezuela that needs to be resolved that’s, in the first place, a domestic issue. It does have international implications in terms of migration. We have to look at the human rights situation and all of that. But you know, the basic thing which I’m always looking at is keep open lines of communication; keep dialogue. “
He said that this approach did not go well with the administration, which sits now at the OAS. “If you isolate yourself from an engagement, from a dialogue with a country, then you do not have the opportunity, you lost the opportunity willingly to influence. And I believe we must have that conversation with Venezuela, the de facto leadership, which is there.
“We need to engage with them to see what can be done to at least come to a certain understanding of how the country and the international engagement can relate. With regard to Cuba. Cuba is a member of the OAS. The suspension was lifted a couple of years ago, many years ago. It is now up to Cuba as well to become an active member of the OAS,” Ramdin told CMC, adding “I’m not shying away from it.
“We’ll need to be very frank at the same time, but very much also engaging behind the scenes as much as possible, to facilitate a discussion that can bring parties together. I don’t believe in making statements which do not help the process further and we need to make sure that diplomacy works, and that can only happen when you consider it well, on all sides.
“That’s a reality. In our hemisphere. We have different countries. There are different agendas. Every single region has different agendas. Every country has different agendas,” Ramdin said, reiterating “we need to make sure that we align as much as possible with the aim, with the objective of going forward.
“So my own approach to this is always, what can we do to make things better? What can we do to progress and to find solutions? And that is the approach I will take.”
Ramdin said there are also issues that cover country-related or general thematic areas that would have to be dealt with immediately, giving as an example, the situation in Haiti, where ever since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021, criminal gangs have stepped up their activities in a bid to overthrow the government in the French-speaking CARICOM country.
“Haiti. Haiti requires the full attention of the OAS because the goals, the purpose of the OAS is exactly that, is to help countries build a stable environment, a democracy, regular elections and so on. In my time, we used to have mechanisms to discuss Haiti. All of that is gone. We’re going to re-establish that”.
The other pressing issue is that of migration with Ramdin noting that “a lot of the discussions” on migration have to do with domestic conflicts, like in Venezuela and other parts of the hemisphere.
“It is a major issue for Central America because that’s the corridor through which the persons are going to the United States. And you know, the discussions in the United States with regard to migration”.
The Donald Trump administration has made migration a major policy issue and has been rounding up and deporting many illegal immigrants back to their homeland. In addition, Washington has cut funding for many programmes that have benefitted many people in the Americas.
“So my response to this is even stronger than before. Of course, we will need to take a serious look at the organisational structure of the OAS. We need to streamline and make the organisation fit for the budget it has available.
“We will need to look at that, and that means that we will have a serious discussion with member states about the mandate of the OAS. When we go to the original purpose of the OAS, it was to create peace and prosperity. So, in this case, democracy, security and development are key…
“People feel that development for them, a good life, a safe life, is important. Now, recognising that we will need to streamline even more than before, even more than possibly the reports, the external consultancy report, which came out a couple of months ago demonstrates. The positive thing is, I know the organisation inside out. I have worked within the organisation. I have been in the leadership of the organisation.
“I have been on the political side of the organisation, so I know the institutional capabilities. One of the things we did in the lead-up to approving the budget is already agreeing on certain cuts in terms of the political leadership, in terms of advisory positions. I have agreed with that because my view is I am going to work with the institution. “
Ramdin said he intends to open dialogue with the United States, “and I have started with that already.
“I have good inroads in the new US administration. We know them from before. When we took office in Suriname in 2020, the Trump administration was in power, and we spoke with them then, and we have those contacts still, and we have those discussions. They’re happening as we speak. There’s a different environment.
“There is a different view on multilateralism, but we will have to demonstrate also to the United States that major interest, major goals, can be achieved through a multilateral framework.
“There may be some level of disbelief in that, but I believe if we keep that dialogue ongoing, they will also come to the point that maybe not all, but there are certain areas of the OAS that needs to be continued, to be strengthened.“
Ramdin says another immediate priority will be that of climate change, which is very important to the region.
“The OAS is not a development agency. We don’t have the money to support budgets and to support major developments. But what we do have is the moral suasion to have in the political discourse these issues be discussed as well, and it will help that, together with other organisations to provide support.
“ We need to develop road maps on all these issues, and we have to apply new tools. When I say new tools, basically these tools, we already know, but they were not applied. We need to engage political leaders, retired presidents, experts on helping the OAS,” Ramdin told CMC.