Some Mild Adventures at the OAS General Assembly

I'm on the board of the Institute for Democratic Dialogue in the Americas (IDDA), a non-profit that runs the annual Model OAS in Washington DC, a simulation for college students from across the Americas.  The IDDA executive committee agreed to subsidize my travel in June to Antigua, Guatemala, to attend the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly.  The OAS, a kind of UN for the Western Hemisphere, recognizes IDDA as a "civil society organization," and has been encouraging more input into its deliberations from these organizations.  So that's how I ended up in Antigua, attending the 43rd OAS General Assembly, convened  to produce a "Comprehensive Policy against the World Drug Problem in the Americas."

As happens every time I return to Guatemala, I felt like I was just picking up where I left off, as if the months (or years) away had been a brief timeout from a life that is a fusion of Peace Corps volunteer, archival historian and quasi anthropologist, and gringo tourist.  And as usual, the typical patterns of my Guatemalan life unfolded in different ways.

Calle del Arco, Antigua, Guatemala

1) The General Assembly was held at the Hotel Santo Domingo, a lujo place way beyond my means.  Instead, I stayed at the Casa Cristina, a modest but comfortable pensión, about a fifteen minute walk away.  That walk took me through the Calle del Arco, an oft-painted and photographed scene in Antigua.  As I passed under the arch, I saw three Mayan girls sitting on the sidewalk, chatting away. They're vendors; I could see bags of wares between theirs legs.  It was early morning, so maybe they weren't expecting a gringito to pass by at this hour.  Or maybe it's just that they were kids, taking their time to get what was, no doubt, a trying workday started.  They didn't notice me until I began to curve around their outstretched legs, and then they sang out "Hola, amigo, comprame unos manteles...muy bonitos.  When I didn't pause they lamented "Ay, favor, no compra algo?" As I continued I said "Ay, no, pero gracias."  As I passed the last girl she let out a hard sigh of frustration and swatted the back of my leg with her shawl.  I kept walking but looked back and smiled.  They were frozen, but suddenly burst out in laughter--they couldn't believe their precociousness, I'm guessing.  I took it as a good omen for their sales.

Mayan women celebrating Semana Santa
Antigua, Guatemala

2) Near the entrance of Santo Domingo, a few Mayan women and men hung around selling the standard tourist wares.  One young woman tried a number of times to sell me jewelry, trotting out some stock English phrases in a nasal, flat, almost robotic tone.  When "Good price" or "Very pretty" didn't get me to stop, she would call out, "Okay, maybe later." The last time I saw her, I did finally reply.  I said "Tal vez," and then, wryly, "Si Dios quiere"  (Perhaps, if God wills it).  She looked at me, as if she were trying to read me, and then laughed, and practically skipped away saying "Si, si, si Dios quiere." I decided my irreverent diplomacy was worth hearing her own voice.

3) One late afternoon I was again at the entrance, waiting for a bus to take me to another hotel where they would celebrate the formal inauguration of the OAS General Assembly.  While standing there, trying to ignore a warm light drizzle, I saw a change of the guard--Guatemalan special forces.  Two men, with impressive builds, berets rakishly askew, climbed out of a truck.  Automatics slung over their shoulders, pistols on their hips, they angled my way.  One began almost to swagger when he caught my eye on him.  And I would have accepted his macho superiority were his finger not jammed up his nose.

4) So I finally got a bus to the inauguration--at the Hotel Finca Filadelfia just outside of town, another luxurious resort that I could only visit as an itinerate, obscure diplomat.  Some young women--I guessed student interns, with blue blazers and yellow scarves emblazoned with the OAS logo, orchestrated our way onto the bus.  One intern who got on last, upon seeing a senior diplomat standing in the aisle, glared at a fellow intern sitting near him.  She told her, in a pleasant voice with an undertone of outrage, to get up and let "el señor" have the seat.  The diplomat was now equally upset.  "No, miss, never!  I'm fine.  I would NEVER force a lady to stand while I sit!"  "I would die if I did that," he added in a loud mutter.  There were some affirming noises, some laughter, and I was thinking "The man doth protest too much..."

K'iché Mayan Women at a clinic
San Francisco La Union, Xela

5) All the understandable security checkpoints and re-routed traffic slowed our bus.  What should have taken 15 minutes took three times as long.  But the mood remained light on the bus--lots of happy chatter around me to keep my mood up (I'm not one for crowded social occasions where I know nobody, and sometimes even those where I do).  My mood dropped when we reached the entrance to the session hall.  Someone--probably a tourism official a Guatemalan friend later told me--had the bright idea of placing a human statue at the doorway.  She was a beautiful, if slightly emaciated, white woman dressed in full Mayan traje, surrounded by stalks of corn, baskets of breads and multi-colored beans, and giving us a frozen smile.  After a couple of days of wandering among real Mayan women, attending an international forum dedicated to the rights and dignity of indigenous peoples, I was mystified by the thoughtlessness.  I know I shouldn't have been surprised.  This kind of elite appropriation of the heritage of marginalized indigenous peoples has been, is, common, not just in Guatemala.

Anyway, this living statue was the set up for "el show" we were to see after what turned out to be stultifying inaugural speeches.  I didn't stay to see the show, nor did many others, who probably had partying on their minds.  Our bus turned out to be trapped in the Finca's byzantine parking lot.  After pulling forward and backing up several times on one access road, the bus driver tried another, but after more forward and reverse, still no success.  We were in purgatory, our punishment for leaving early.  But someone must have prayed for us because, after 40 minutes of this, we finally found a way out, everyone cheering, the driver laughing.  Another 40 minutes later I was back in my room, with two ultimately inedible slices of Al Macarone pizza, and a very drinkable Chilean red.  I was indeed in Guatemala.

An example of the Guatemalan Ministry of Tourism's branding

6) I attended two three-hour "diálogos," sessions in which civil society organization observers gathered to have an informal meeting with Secretary General Miguel Insulza.  These sessions were a combination of panel presentations featuring representatives of different constituencies (e.g., organized labor, human rights NGOs, business councils), mild and fiery soapbox critiques of the "war on drugs" , Q & A moments with the Secretary General, and opportunities for delegates to raise their voices about matters not on the agenda (even though Insulza urged us to stay to the topics on hand).

To me these sessions were remarkable displays of international diplomacy--the effort of people from a wide range of origins, with sometimes radically different agendas and interests, trying to have a useful conversation (and debate) about how to resolve collective problems.  And I think the OAS made a good move in opening up this distinctive kind of venue at the General Assembly.  Alongside the formal, protocol-laden deliberations between the nation-states of the western hemisphere, there is now an inclusive space for more free-wheeling debate among transnational organizations--a recognition of the shifting character of global relations.

Occasionally, it could get wild.  At the first session a group of anti-Chavez men stood up and, amid applauses and boos, presented a list of complaints to the Secretary General regarding Venezuela's recent presidential election.  Evidently, the Venezuelan government's OAS head delegate was on hand, because he was all of the sudden at the podium denouncing this group, while the young men tried to yell over his amplified voice.  They ended up storming out of the session, followed by sympathizers, with others taking pictures or video of the near-relajo with their phones and iPads.  Eventually the Secretary General got the session back in order (there are Spanish-language news report about this here and here).

At the next session, the Venezuelan head delegate apologized for intervening in a forum where all voices should be heard, but later, when a Guatemalan woman spoke out against family planning and same-sex marriage, a majority of the audience stood with backs to her while others cheered and clapped in support.  But as soon as the woman finished her speech, the session was back on track, and again I was getting schooled in the multiple issues that complicate the creation of a comprehensive drug policy--from the standard debates over incarceration versus treatment, to the impact of illicit drugs on worker-management relations, and on to the ways current policies contribute to the "muerto civil" of social groups that already suffer discrimination (women, racial and ethnic minorities, the mentally ill).

I'm so glad for the opportunity to attend this event.  I learned a great deal, and realized there's a great deal more to learn, not just about the drug issue, but about the incredible diversity in our hemisphere.  And I'm grateful for the serendipitous surprises, mentioned above, that greeted me in Guatemala, whether amusing or trying.  While my body is no longer as flexible as it once was when I first went there in 1984, hopefully they will keep my mind and heart that way.

An afterthought.  Here's some Spanish-language TV coverage of the first civil society organization session (in repeated footage of the session about to end, I think that's me up a few rows on the right, with one leg out in the aisle, wearing light-colored khakis).  The report sums up pretty well the principle bones of contention about drug policy but unfortunately doesn't get into what representatives of different civil society organizations had to say.