A Chance to Create

LATIN AMERICA A Chance to Create The Organization of American States has long been a deeply troubled and largely ineffective body. At no time were its problems more visible than when the OAS's 22 member nations set out last November to pick a new secretary-general to replace Uruguay's retiring Jose A. Mora. What seemed like a simple task dragged on through three months of petty politicking, bickering and name-calling. Last week, the OAS finally settled on the man that it should have chosen in the first place: Ecuador's Galo Plaza Lasso, 62, one of Latin America's most skilled and experienced diplomats.

The trouble began when U.S. Ambassador Sol M. Linowitz openly announced that the U.S. supported Plaza, confident that Plaza had the votes wrapped up in the OAS Council. Seeing a good issue, Panama's Ambassador Eduardo Ritter Aislan immediately lashed out at Yanqui pressure, rallied support for his own candidacy and on the first ballot managed to prevent Plaza from getting the 15-vote majority that he needed for election. When the voting was still deadlocked after three more ballots, the Council declared an eleven-week "cooling-off" period. In the end, Ritter defeated himself by calling a special session of the OAS Council and claiming that a "conspiracy of sinister forces" tinged with "Nazism" was Arrayed against him. Seven delegations formally rejected his charges, and everyone else took a more critical look at the Panamanian. By the time last week's final balloting rolled around, Ritter had no hope of victory; he quietly withdrew, throwing the election to Plaza.

When he assumes his post in May, Plaza will face many other problems besides petty politics. Under Mora's amiably inefficient regime, the OAS's ponderous, bureaucracy has grown from 300 people to 1,400, corruption is spreading at lower levels and a general lassitude has settled over the organization. But if anyone is equipped to meet the challenge and help the OAS achieve its goal of Latin American cooperation and development, Plaza is the man.

The son of a two-time President of Ecuador, Plaza himself served as his country's President from 1948 to 1952, becoming Ecuador's first chief of state in modern history to keep the army out of the palace. He also won a wide reputation as a shrewd internationalist while serving as a U.N. troubleshooter in Lebanon, the Congo and Cyprus and heading the hard-working United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America. What Latin America needs most, Plaza once said, is a "strong, dynamic, creative" OAS. Now he has the chance to see if he can create just that.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.