US embassy cable - 05QUITO537

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