OAS votes to readmit Cuba after 47 years

updated 8:28 p.m. ET June 3, 2009

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - The Organization of American States on Wednesday lifted a decades-old ban on Cuba's participation in the group and cleared the way for the island's return despite initial U.S. objections.

The vote by acclamation to revoke a 1962 measure suspending Cuba from the hemispheric group toppled an enduring landmark of the Cold War, and made clear that Latin American nations are forging a more independent relationship with the United States.

"The Cold War has ended this day in San Pedro Sula," said Honduran President Manuel Zelaya immediately following the announcement. "We begin a new era of fraternity and tolerance."

The action doesn't mean Cuba will return to the 34-member body that helps coordinate policies and mediates disputes throughout the Americas. Cuban officials have repeatedly insisted they have no interest in returning to an organization they consider a tool of the United States.

But it does map out a new, more collegial relationship between the U.S. and Latin American countries, and could help nascent U.S. efforts to start a dialogue with Cuba after more than four decades without diplomatic relations.

Restoring ties with Cuba
After El Salvador this week became the hemisphere's latest nation to restore ties with Cuba, the OAS move further draws the island back into the hemispheric fold after its Cold War isolation.

"This is a moment of rejoicing for all of Latin America," Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Fander Falconi told reporters after the session. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega called the vote "news of hope."

If Cuba later decides to join the group, the agreement calls for "a process of dialogue" in line with OAS "practices, proposals and principles" — a veiled allusion to agreements on human rights and democracy that the U.S. has insisted upon.

Robert A. Pastor, a longtime foreign policy adviser on hemispheric affairs, called the final resolution a good compromise.

Requesting Cuba to seek a dialogue with the OAS "offers an avenue toward maintaining the Inter-American Democratic Charter," said Pastor, a professor at American University in Washington. "One hopes that the U.S. will expedite its negotiations with Cuba and Cuba begins a dialogue with the OAS on a wide range of issues."

'A putrid embarrassment'
But U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the vote only appeased Cuba.

"Now we know where the priorities of the OAS lie," the Cuba-born Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. "Rather than upholding democratic principles and fundamental freedoms, OAS member states, led by the OAS Secretary General, could not move quickly enough to appease their tyrannical idols in Cuba.

"Today's decision by the OAS is an affront to the Cuban people and to all who struggle for freedom, democracy, and fundamental human rights," she added.

U.S. Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, also Cuba-born Florida Republicans, called the vote "a putrid embarrassment" and said it showed the Obama Administration's "absolute diplomatic incompetence and its unrestricted appeasement of the enemies of the United States."

The decision was made by consensus, meaning the United States accepted it, though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had lobbied personally for requiring Cuba to make democratic reforms and improve respect for human rights.

Clinton applauds final vote
"Many member countries originally sought to lift the 1962 suspension and allow Cuba to return immediately, without conditions," Clinton said in a statement issued by the State Department in Washington.

"Others agreed with us that the right approach was to replace the suspension which has outlived its purpose after nearly half a century with a process of dialogue and a future decision that will turn on Cuba's commitment to the organization's values," she added.

Clinton herself left the meeting before the final vote. The meeting dragged on so long Tuesday night that she did not even have time to deliver a prepared speech of 1,500 words before flying out of Honduras to join President Barack Obama in Egypt.

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