SOCIAL CHARTER: GOE WORRIED OVER VENEZUELA'S ROLE

UNCLAS QUITO 000537

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS USOAS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SOCI EC OAS
SUBJECT: SOCIAL CHARTER: GOE WORRIED OVER VENEZUELA'S ROLE

REF: SECSTATE 39428


1. At a March 8 working lunch with MFA Subsecretary (U/S
equivalent) for Multilateral Affairs Jose Piedrahita, Poloffs
raised Reftel preoccupation over Venezuelan attempts to
hijack the proposed OAS Social Charter. The USG fully
supported efforts to establish said document and sought
hemispheric consensus in its drafting and implementation,
they emphasized. Caving to Venezuelan demands to chair the
Social Charter working group seemed far from consensus,
however, while the GoV's tabled draft appeared a
thinly-veiled attempt to spread that undemocratic
government's "Bolivarian" visions region-wide.


2. Ecuador, too, supported the formulation of the Social
Charter, as introduced at last June's OAS General Assembly in
Quito. Piedrahita did not comment on the GoV draft, but
shared USG concerns over Venezuelan influence in the working
group and the need for hemispheric consensus. Piedrahita
believed that a shared or rotating committee chair seemed
more appropriate than simply handing the responsibility to
the GoV.


3. COMMENT: Reftel reports that Ecuador, perhaps
reluctantly, had succumbed to GoV pressures to drive the
Social Charter process. Piedrahita's comments seem to
illustrate that reluctance. END COMMENT.
KENNEY