President Obama will join his
34 regional counterparts in Cartagena, Colombia this weekend for the Sixth Summit of the Americas. The theme of this year's meeting is "Connecting the Americas: Partners for
Prosperity."
A more appropriate theme would
be, "Whatever happened to the Inter-American
Democratic Charter?"
That landmark document, signed
a decade ago by all the governments of the hemisphere (excluding Cuba), in
Lima, Peru, states, "The peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy, and
their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it."
But the rise to power of
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and a passel of other leftist populists has turned that
commitment on its head, as they have systematically gutted their country's
democratic institutions and trampled on nearly every article enshrined in the
Charter with nary a peep of protest from other governments in the region.
Indeed, the
region's fading commitment to defending democracy has even dominated headlines
leading up to the Summit. The ringleader in this case has been Ecuadorean
rabble-rouser Rafael Correa, who in high dudgeon has declaimed that he is boycotting this year's summit
because thoroughly undemocratic Cuba was not invited.
Castro's Cuba,
which would not recognize a democratic principle if one walked up and slapped
him in the face, has never been invited to a summit because conforming to the
most elementary standards of democratic governance is a prerequisite to attend.
Predictably, Hugo Chávez was
the first to rush to Correa's defense, saying that
although he would attend the summit (health permitting), "This will be the last
so-called Summit of the Americas without Cuba. The next one wouldn't
occur," and that a "good number of us" will advocate Cuba's inclusion at the
next such gathering.
He added
that he had discussed the issue with leaders from Argentina, Bolivia,
Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Brazil.
It
wasn't long before Argentina and Brazil also weighed in, toeing the same
line. "This has to be the last summit in which Cuba does not participate," said Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman
in an appearance with his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota.
You know
a regional commitment to promoting and defending democracy is in trouble when
otherwise mature countries like Argentina and Brazil are lining up in support
of Cuba's inclusion in the Summit of the Americas.
But the issue also goes beyond
the incongruence of a Stalinist regime participating in a meeting of popularly
elected governments. As noted, a deafening regional silence has
accompanied populist encroachments on democratic norms and institutions over
the past few years, whether they have occurred in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,
or Nicaragua.
It may be true that there are
limits to the appeal of the Chávez model throughout the region, but according
to Freedom House's annual Freedom in the World (2012) report,
Chávez's "quasi-authoritarian populism still stands as a threat to the region's
political stability."
President
Obama has an opportunity when he travels to Colombia on Saturday to make clear
that the Charter is not just another regional declaration to be signed and
forgotten. Instead, it stands as the crowning achievement of the region's
history of perseverance and grit -- at great human cost -- to move past its
authoritarian past and establish democratic governance as the hemispheric
norm.
The president must unabashedly
reassert the abiding relevance of the Inter-American Democratic Charter as one
that transcends ideology and fuzzy notions of Latin "solidarity" and remains the foundation
for any lasting regional peace and prosperity.
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