GUATEMALA LIKELY TO SUPPORT U.S. POSITIONS ON OAS

UNCLAS GUATEMALA 001082 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON PREL ETTC OAS GT SUBJECT: GUATEMALA LIKELY TO SUPPORT U.S. POSITIONS ON OAS DECLARATION AND MEXICAN RESOLUTION REF: State 87933 ¶1. (SBU) On June 1, Econ Counselor delivered reftel demarche to Carla Rodriguez, the Director General of Multilateral Relations (A/S equivalent) at the MFA. Rodriguez was familiar with Helms-Burton and indicated that Guatemala generally supports multi-lateral diplomacy and opposes unilateral measures. That said, she did not see the point in opening up the Mexican resolution for revision, although she could not commit to this since she had not seen Venezuela's proposed amendments. ¶2. (SBU) We passed Rodriguez the Spanish language copy of the Santo Domingo Declaration with Venezuela's requested changes. She did not understand why Venezuela wanted them and appeared to agree with our points that it would be counterproductive to reopen the declaration for amendments. She promised to send the declaration and our talking points immediately to the Guatemalan delegation, passing the documents to assistants for scanning and transmittal. During the broader discussion Rodriguez manifested frustration with Venezuela's actions at various international conferences, stating that this will hurt rather than help Chavez' and Venezuela's image. Wharton