 Okay. Well, I think you can hear me. Great. Welcome, everybody. Good morning, and welcome to today's event. My name is Carl Meacham, and I am the director here of the America's Program here at CSIS, and we're truly lucky today to have His Excellency Jose Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the OAS. I believe the Secretary General will probably touch on many issues today, but I think the focus of today was to be the crisis in Venezuela. So I'll let him, I'll let him focus on that in his remarks. I'm just going to frame the discussion a little bit and just give a little bit of a background for the folks that are watching of what's going on with Venezuela. It is, of course, difficult to pinpoint the beginning of the current Venezuelan crisis. I think that the current unrest can probably traced, most specifically this last episode, can be traced to about one month ago. In early February, students began protesting in Venezuela's major cities. Since then, the protests have spread in size and in scope, demanding everything from reduced corruption to the resignation of President Maludo, and daily violent clashes between opposition and government supporters have come to characterize these demonstrations. To date, 18 have been confirmed dead, over 260 injured, and more than 1,000 detained or arrested, according to official figures. And reports of media censorship and human rights violations have only grown as the protests have continued. The crisis has raised a lot of important questions, but perhaps two of the most important ones are, or the most important one, I think, in my view, is what's at stake in the crisis for Venezuela, for the U.S., and for the region. And I guess a follow-up would be how individual states and the international community might help to mediate the situation which, by most accounts, has spiraled out of control. The stakes in Venezuela are, to put it simply, huge. The crisis hasn't garnered as much attention as the one in Ukraine. And understandably, given the scope of what's happening in Eastern Europe and the global implications involved, you can make a case for Ukraine being more important. But the same way that the crisis in Ukraine is key for Eastern European stability, Venezuela is similarly pivotal for stability in the Western Hemisphere. The Venezuelan crisis highlights a challenge to the democratic norms and rights that we cherish, not just in the United States, but in the region. The country is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. And Petro-driven Venezuela props up the governments of many countries with the oil and gas assistance program. And there's the other issue, which is Venezuela borders with Colombia. And its relationships with Colombia, not just commercial, but also issues relating to the transnational drug issue are also at play in this discussion, if the situation in Venezuela gets worse and worse. So the Venezuela issue has larger regional implications, and it's very clear. Chaos then in Venezuela could translate into chaos in the region. So what are the potential ways forward in Venezuela? I will, for obvious reasons, leave much of that question to the Secretary General. There are, in reality, a fairly wide variety of options. The crisis, of course, could be resolved internally, whether that be through some degree of political change or easing or through the current government's reestablishment of order. On the international level, we could see the involvement of individual actors or multilateral groups. Some are skeptical that this will occur domestically. Some are looking for a larger organization to help mediate the situation. And the natural actor here is the OAS, citing the organization's Democratic Charter and the precedent that the OAS has set in the past in its involvement in other conflicts around the region. But greater involvement is far from clear cut, given the organization's consensus-driven model and the several members that would see its involvement as an overreach. Many have called other organizations, the UN, even the Vatican, to get involved. These are issues that I think we'll be able to discuss here today. It's not that we can say that the OAS hasn't done that much either with regards to Venezuela. A lot of people would say they should be doing more. I believe that a meeting has been scheduled on Thursday to discuss this issue. So even if movement is slow, some movement is occurring. And I don't want to sort of characterize this for the Secretary. I think the Secretary is going to characterize it himself. On that note, I want to turn it to the Secretary. But I do want to just say a couple of background points about the Secretary. A lot of you know the Secretary as Secretary General of the OAS. I've had the privilege of knowing the Secretary's long history because I'm part Chilean and his profile and his involvement in Chile at a very sensitive period was very important. Prior to his position at the OAS, he served as under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Secretary General of the Presidency, Minister of the Interior, Vice President of Chile. That tells you sort of the weight of the person that's here to my right. So with that kind of profile, a lot is expected of you. And dealing with issues like Venezuela, I think that you probably have answers and options to deal with that situation going forward. So the usual rules apply today. When we go into the Q&A session, I please identify who you are and try to keep it brief. I know there's a lot of folks with a lot of opinions and with a lot of questions for the Secretary. I want to be able to get to as many folks as we can. Having said that, once again, welcome to all of you, Secretary General. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much and thank you, Carl, for this invitation. I think I could start by saying that we should have had this meeting about a couple of weeks ago. That's when we set it first. I would not talk about the reason why it was postponed. But actually, it was postponed twice because we had meetings at the OAS that didn't take place. And in the meantime, several things happened. And the situation today is, I would say, much more serious than it was two weeks ago. Many, many more things have happened, many more marches and mobilizations from students and women and the groups who favor the opposition, groups who favor the government. More people have died. Unfortunately, more people have died. I think that when we started talking about this, there may have been two or three persons that were dead. And now we're talking about over a dozen. And that's a fact. The public opinion has been very much divided in several countries. A lot of members of people from the different organizations. So I would say moral forces in the world, like the Pope and others are giving their opinion on that. And unfortunately, I would also say the OAS has not met. And it has not met because the council has not been called to session in spite of the request of the ambassador of Panama. And that is the first one ever. I have never seen the OAS not meeting in 10 days after the ambassador requests an urgent, the request something that the council has to meet to decide. I do hope that we have that meeting tomorrow. I do hope it's an open meeting, even though some said it's going to be a private meeting. And I hope that people will react to that or governments will react to that. But that's the way things stand. By the way, the council is called by the president of the council. The secretary is not empowered to call the council into session. Now, I think that we can agree on some, just since I feel that in the questions there will be some disagreement that was tried by saying what are the things we agree on matters of interest. I'm sorry, I think that this microphone is not to be, maybe I put it like this, I mean I hold it like this. I think it's that this is the microphone they gave me. Well, I can speak as loud as I can. And maybe without the microphone, I would use the microphone very well. Okay, I would use the microphone. I was saying that I think that there are some things, some objective things I would say, in which we can agree on Venezuela. Like right here, okay, okay, we can agree on Venezuela. No, no, I'm not going to put it in the tie because it's not going to work. We're going to get you out of here. Okay, okay, okay. Can you listen to me in here? Very well. I would say that we can agree on some things. I mean, I hope that these matters which are not to be contested by any way, any way, just to begin with. First, Venezuela is undergoing a very large division, a divide among its people. If you look at the streets where I said this yesterday to somebody from the government and the opposition, and they both answer the same, they said, I said, there are marches on both sides, very large, and both said, well, ours are larger. I don't know which are larger, but there is a big division in society, and that's a fact. This is not your common situation in which some very strong armed forces of family fights against a large number of people or vice versa. Some very small groups are repressed by a large society. Now, this is a divided society in the first place. Second, there are some very serious, objective serious problems, economic and social problems in Venezuela that have to be dealt soon. If you look at the situation, of course, we all know some of the things that are going on, the inflation, the shortage of products, the decay in the industrial production, and basically the production, the oil production, the prices of oil, which are practically free for Venezuelans, in spite of the $100 a barrel that they are for every other part of the world, the lack of several services at this moment, difficulties in all kinds of supplies, etc. Everybody knows that that's going on. And there are problems that can only be dealt when the country is in peace. So, something that the conclusion of this is, while this crisis lasts, the real problems are not going to be addressed, and they are serious problems. If everybody went home today, and nobody ever protested or supported the government anymore, those problems will still exist, and they are not easy to deal with. Sir, I think that something that we cannot agree on, so even though to some people, it may be a novelty, but it's not new, but now everybody agrees on that, is that there's a real strong and mobilized opposition. I will quote something that Pavela showed me this morning, which is a piece by Enrique Krause from some time ago, not from yesterday or a year ago. Yeah, a year ago he would have asked if there would be action by the opposition, now that President Chavez, with the passing of President Chavez, was passing by the way. This one was exactly on the 5th of March of last year. And Krause would have said, no, I think that there will be a continuity of the regime, but I very much trust the students, you said. How do you think that the students can do something? Really, this was started by the students, but this is not just a student. It's a full-blown opposition, which is very strong, very diverse in many of the things that they ask for. Some of them are even going to dial or call by President Maduro saying that they are opposition. Others are another one, which is Leopoldo Lopez has inaugurated yesterday, I don't know if it's a blog or a Twitter called La Salida or something like that, meaning that this is only for people who want the government to leave. But they're very strong in protesting and in asking for a full change in the country. That's very clear, but that's also something we can agree. I think we can agree also in some of the responses. There's, of course, everybody has rejected the violations of human rights and the violence and the deaths that have occurred, and feel that this should be investigated. While some people, though some people don't, I will say, trust the internal investigations, certainly I think we all agree that the Commission on Human Rights should go into the matter and look into all these cases of deaths and they should be investigated and punished. Now, in spite of that, there are some disagreements. And one disagreement has to do with the major, with the most important thing in this case, which is from my point of view, of course, one says that these ideas are the most important, probably, but in my case it's supported by the Pope, by the secretaries of the United Nations, by the head of the European Union, by the heads of everybody. He says, look, I mean, when you are so divided, the only way out is a dialogue. Nobody's going to win here. Nobody's going to win in this situation. And if somebody won, the other one would lose and that would create this, which perpetuate the situation in society for several years. I have been very, very careful to, in using the case of my country of Chile, because some people say I'm comparing, I'm not comparing. I'm just saying we had more or less similar situations in Chile in 1973 and there was violence in the streets, on both sides, on both sides there was violence in the streets and the opposition mobilized very strongly and the government mobilized very heavily. And finally this ended in a breakdown and let me say it as carefully as possible, it was not because I don't have an opinion of what happened, but because I want to go to, I don't want to push the comparison so far, so far. But that was, that's, there's some clear thing, somebody won and there was 17 years of dictatorship in Chile and I wouldn't like that to happen. That's really simple. I don't want that to happen and I don't think that anybody should want that to happen whether his size wins or his size loses and the only way to avoid that is what happened in Chile late, at the last minute, very insufficiently and failed completely, which was a dialogue between the government and the opposition led by the cardinal, by the way of the country at that time. But the polarization was too large. I mean the extreme, the extreme, the extremes on the two sides had already the upper hand and they created a situation in which finally violence came, I mean violence came to be the solution or the way out, not the solution, the way out of the problem. The consequence was 17 years of, of, of dictatorship. So that's the choice and I think it's a big choice. You have a dialogue, you'll have, you eventually have a lot of violence because of what I said before, the problems are there. They're not going to go away. The problems have to be solved and they will be solved by dialogue, consensus or force, but they have to be solved at some point and a lot of people are looking that they want the violence. I don't think that that's a good thing. I think that we have to have a dialogue and I have said, we will talk about the, what dialogue that should be, but I want to be very brief on this, we have to have a dialogue and the international community can be helpful for that. But then the international community can be helpful and I'm not talking about the, oh yes, I have even told him, I look, I don't mind who is there, but have somebody whom both can trust. I mean the only reason why I think that there should be somebody from the international community probably should be called in, whether it's the Secretary of the Vatican, Secretary of State, who Secretary of State, who just until recently was denuncio, the paper denuncio in Caracas until a few months ago, or somebody is that there are no internal personalities that could do the job. I mean that's the only reason. Well nobody trusts anybody. If somebody finds three Venezuelans that can call everybody and everybody will go and feel that he is being respected, well fine. That's the whole, that would be ideal. If not, I think that the international community would help, but it will not help, it will not, the international community will not help taking sides. I understand groups in society can take sides. I understand groups in society can, of course, strongly make strong appeals for change, etc., but I don't think that any kind of intervention from abroad will be legitimate. I don't think, and this is where these agreements begin, I don't think there has been a clear, massive destruction of democracy in Venezuela. Of course there are some problems which I don't like about the function of Venezuelan democracy, for example, the lack of independence of the judiciary, which is really a problem, really a problem. Problems of freedom of expression, even though some people do have ways of expressing their opinion, but I don't think that we can legitimize any kind of movement against the government of Venezuela, which was elected eight months ago, or nine, no, ten months ago. The president of Venezuela was elected by a majority of heavier months ago, and not many people really in Venezuela proclaimed that this was a phone election. And I don't think that has changed, though there's absolutely no reason to apply any of the instruments of the OES in the breakdown of the democracy part, which are Article 20 and 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. I think I'm putting you right. Of course there could be a possibility, and that's not an intervention, to send fact-finding missions according to the Inter-American Democratic Charter, but by the way, first, nobody had requested that, and second, whether it is the initiative of the government, that's Article 17, or the initiative of another country, or the secretary general, excuse me, the council or the secretary general, which would be Article 18, it still requires the consent of the government of Venezuela. So the problem is that, I mean, of course, if you say you should bring it to council, yes I can bring it to council, it's going to be in council tomorrow, not the Democratic Charter, because by the way, Panama did not ask to apply the Democratic Charter. Panama only asked for a meeting, which any country has a chance, has a possibility to ask for a consultation minister's, minister of meetings on the situation in Venezuela, not according to the Charter, but if you want to use the Charter, those are the ways of using the Charter. You only use the Charter, Article 18, Article 17, when the government or the country requested. And Article 18, when the council or the secretary general take the initiative with the consent of the country. Article 20 and 21, when there's a breakdown of democracy in the country, it already happened. So the council decides to go ahead, and the council has to agree that it happened, and that it will go ahead with the mission, not to intervene, but to try to restore, to try to discuss dialogue, etc., in the country, to try to restore democracy. So we're very far from that. We're not going to do that. And I think that the idea of what we should be doing is all together, continue pushing for dialogue in Venezuela. If there's an agreement by the government of Venezuela for me to send the mission, I will send it. Of course I will. But if not, let anyone in the international community who is able to do that try to organize a real dialogue. I think that the dialogue that began the other day, by the way, is an incomplete dialogue, of course. It's an incomplete dialogue because some people, the business sector, especially are there. It's an important thing because probably they have to do, they are the best qualified to have to work on the matters of solving the economic crisis. But it's incomplete because the opposition is participating, not participating. So I think that the previous thing that should be done is sit down with the opposition and see in which terms are they willing to sit in the table. Well, some of them will say, only if Maduro leaves, if he does this, and does that, etc., probably. But I think that there are people in the opposition who want some kind of a dialogue and they should be given the conditions in which they can do it. I mean, that's about everything I want to say to get started. And I hope that we have a lively dialogue on this matter. Thank you very much. As we move into the living room portion of the discussion. I mean, I'll just go right into it. I think a lot of people are going to have questions. So when you talk about intervention, or not intervening, and you've said these things in the press and you said it now about the OAS not intervening, does that rule out the OAS playing a role to sort of usher in a type of discussion? Would that mean that the OAS could play a role in bringing the two sides together to have that dialogue that's necessary? No, of course I think that. I mean, that's possible under the Inter-American Democratic Charter. We can set the mission and try to start a dialogue among the parties. That does not mean that we accept any, that in that dialogue we do absolutely anything to try to change the, I mean, no regime change would be a good thing. I mean, the OAS is not involved in regime change, in any case. Regime change is a no-note for the OAS, except, of course, when all the member countries qualify the regime as illegitimate. But this is that, I mean, I haven't heard anybody in the council or even around the council talk, even start qualifying as well as government as an illegitimate regime, which several members of civil society do, but in the way it's known. So I would say that intervention against the, intervention in terms of getting involved in discussions for regime change in a country, in a democratically elected government in the Americas is something we don't do. But that leaves a lot of other issues. I mean, that leaves issues like freedom of political prisoners, that leaves issues like disarming the colectivos, these armed urban gangs that a lot of people feel operate with the tacit support of the government. Is the role of the OAS also one that could include verification of an agreement that came about between the government and the opposition? Well, all those are issues that should be agreed on a dialogue inside the country, between the government and the opposition. And if they agree on that and agree on the OAS verifying them, of course. I mean, we are always, we are even verifying the violence of the armed gangs in El Salvador to make sure that it takes, we very much believe that we have to stop death. I mean, lower the rate of crime. Of course, if there's some agreement in a country and they call in the OAS to verify that agreement, we will go. We have done it in Colombia for the past eight years. Before I open it up to the rest, I just have two more questions. You talk about the issues of breakdown of democracy. And this is the hard one, because then it goes, you know, for some people, the breakdown of democracy means these three things, for other people, it means these other things. But I guess the bottom line is that there has been, there's questionable commitment, at least with a certain group of Venezuelans on the framework right now that exists, the political framework, if it is permitting of dissent. And if dissenting opinions actually can play a role in Venezuela as equal partners. And, you know, you know this better than anybody. You've seen how the treatment of dissenting voices in the Venezuelan parliament or Congress, how that's worked out for years, you've seen that they're really not dominant or equal partners in these discussions. How would you approach the issue as complex as it is, given that the two sides have different perceptions of what democracy seems to be or the role of different actors in democracy? I mean, it seems like there's a real need for mediation here. And I'm just trying to get your sense of what you believe would be necessary to deal with this, that being the OAS, or an independent organization. I mean, what do you see the way forward here? Well, I think that this is a difficult question. Let me put it as I see it, as I have seen it in the OAS and before that. Actually, when the Inter-American Democratic Charter was discussed really among, between the heads of states in 2001, in the third subject of the Americans in Quebec City, Canada, you can find the speeches or things said that show that some of the leaders tended to view, as I see it, by the way, breakdown of democracy, not just as the overthrow of the democratically elected government, which at least I think is something that we should accept as a minimal definition. For example, in the case of the Ibero-American summit, not every American summit, I think very much by the agreements in 1996, but the democratic clauses of the Mercosur or the Unasur seem to apply to every government. I mean, anybody who shows the government is acting undemocratically, even if the government is not democratic, which I don't think is fair. Now, so I'm saying, I think that several heads agreed that there were, aside from the posting of the democratic government, there were other major breaks of the existence of democracy. So much so that our first conference, our first of a very series of conferences called the Cathedral de las Américas, the Chair of the Americas, President Carter enumerated about, I don't know, there were more than 10, there must have been 13 or 18 or something like that, different ways in which democracy could be seriously violated without overthrowing the government. When I spoke to the matter with the council in 2007, I did mention a few of those. I said, for example, a massive, I don't know, but nothing that's impossible, the word, the word, all these heads in Quebec, however, when they ever mentioned the possibility of other causes, they used the word massive in every case, which is very important. I mean, the close down of one of one newspaper, even though you may feel that it's a break, it's a break, it's a break down of non-catholic rules, et cetera, et cetera, it's not a massive suppression of media. So therefore, it doesn't fall into the, I mean, into the ideal category. That's why I used in my presentation of 2007 and 2010, the word massive in all those, I mean, massive violation of law, a complete elimination of one of the powers of the state. And there was another one, massive suppression of all the media, of all the independent media. Some have changed, we have discussed the matter, but the council rejected that. That did not pass, as the country said, look, what we're going to do is every time you have a feeling that something is wrong, you bring it to us and we'll decide if it's a matter of the organization acting or not. And in the case of Israel, of course, I must repeat, we haven't had, let me tell you now, it wouldn't be fair to say we haven't had. In 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked me, and I did, to request the Venezuelan government for a mission to examine the situation of Radio Caracas Televisión. I requested the Venezuelan government, as she had asked me, so I took it, I took it upon myself to do it as my initiative. And they said, no, you can come wherever you want to Venezuela, but not for this case. So there has never been an instance in which another, some I would say, the interruption of a media newspaper or radio, or the intervention of the television channel, or some specific violation of human rights has been, and of course, I forgot to say massive violation of human rights is also a cause which I proposed to Council in 2007. So the fact is that the tools for the OAS to act, unless the crisis is really severe, even if you extend the causes more beyond the elections, unless the crisis is really severe and there's lack of governability in the country, I think they're very low. We can protest, we can call upon them, we can discuss it, but there has not been a any decision since 2001 that would provide for any kind of action by the OAS unless it is a breakdown of the So that leads me to the question. So what can come out of this meeting on Thursday? Oh, I will tell you what I mean, the most that can come, the three things would happen, nothing, because some countries want to do nothing. In fact, some of the other countries want to do nothing. I mean, I don't know how this is, but I mean, some countries have actually accepted the idea that they should be dealt with by another organization. The strange thing is that Selak issued a statement, the Mercosur issued a statement, and all that, and when the OAS wants to be able to issue a statement, says, no, the OAS has to do it. Well, that's not going to happen very soon, but so first, nothing could happen. Maybe it could happen that some countries say, no, we are not going to say anything. Second, I don't think that there's going to be a call of a meeting of foreign minister, but I do think that there could be some kind of a statement, more or less in the lines of the things I've said or other international organizations have said. Calling it to a dialogue, condemning a violation of human rights, asking for an end of violence, and for guarantees for everybody participating in the crime. And offering, of course, services to whatever, if the government of Venezuela is different, I mean, we can always do it as President Jose Mujica Uruguay said, saying that he was willing to mediate. If both parties decided to accept him as an Indian. So I think that's the most that will come from the counters. Maybe somebody will propose a mission under Article 18. This should be 18. But then again, the government of Venezuela has to accept that dream of mission. It's not that they can go just, they can only go without the acceptance of the government under Article 20 when they believe that the government is not a democratic government anymore because it has been changed. Let me open it up for some questions, if there are any questions. Let me start here in front, and then we're going to go in the back, won't we? Hi, thank you. I'm Lucia Leal with FNU Services. I wanted to clarify if I understand that in the meeting tomorrow, some actors may call for a mission, but I wanted to know if you think that a mission would be helpful by the OAS, even if you feel that the tools of the OAS to act are limited. And also you talked about the possibility that the Commission, Inter-American Commission of Human Rights may examine the human rights violations or the detentions. I wanted to know a little bit more about that, what can be done in that sense. Thank you. Well, I think that a mission would be helpful if both sides agree to it. I mean, there's no point in having a mission that's rejected by the government or rejected by the opposition, by the way. I mean, a mission rejected by the opposition doesn't make really much sense. There's no point in trying to do that. Or at least, I would not even say, let me just say it. I mean, when I went to Nicaragua immediately after taking over as Secretary General of the OAS, I was called in by the government because the Congress wanted to depose the government. Of course, the opposition led by now, by President Ortega, he was the opposition leader at that time, and the Congress rejected this attempt to do it, but they accepted to talk. They were willing to talk. We had conversations. That would be the limit, a mission that has some expectation that he would be able to talk to all the actors. That's certainly, we can propose that. I'm not really sure we'll be accepted, but certainly, it is poised to think that we can propose. I'm willing to send the missions wherever they serve that purpose. I would never send the mission requested only by one side, or accepted only by one side, at least to talk. Now, yes, the Commission of Human Rights can act in cases of violation of human rights. Generally, cases, the Commission views matters after the internal resources, legal resources have been depleted, when there has been a sentence by a court, etc. But in cases of urgent matters, they dictate precautionary measures that countries can accept or not. That's a fact. They can accept or not. But I would say that that's one thing that was clarified in the last year's reform of the Commission on Human Rights, because our countries did accept, finally accepted in the report, that there was a possibility of dictating precautionary measures in favor of potential victims, especially when there is no certain, I mean, when there are life, freedom, when there are permanent consequences that can take, that can be avoided with only precautionary measures. That's the discussion, by the way, for example, today, in the matter of the major of Bogota. To what extent he has for precautionary measures, so the Commission is still discussing if this is, if the deposing of the major is permanent damage or not a permanent damage, in which case it would wait for the final decision of the court. But here's a question that a lot of folks, I think, would want to understand a little bit better. So your powers are limited by the will of the members of the organization. Are there certain things that you can do on your own initiative? Well, I can, I mean, as I say, in my hypothetical case, I can send a mission with the only consent of the government. I don't have to ask the government, the council, to approve a mission. If the government says that, like, the secretary, all the council can send a mission with the approval of the government. We can do that. The secretary general or the permanent council may, with prior consent of the government concern, arrange for visits or other actions in order to analyze the situation. So, I mean, theoretically, I could do it without the consent of the council, because this is alternative. I can do it. But I think that it's easy to get, I don't think I would get it anywhere, but it's easy to get it from the council than to get it from the government. Believe me, I have, I've spoken with them, and they have said the same thing that they always said. You are really, you are perfectly, you are invited to come to Venezuela whenever you want, but not in times, not in these times of crisis. And that's happened recently? Oh, yesterday. Okay. Can you keep on getting questions? Microphone, please. Good morning. Luis Alonso at the AP. Many thanks for doing this, Mr. Secretary. I think one of the few areas where both the opposition and the government in Venezuela agrees on is that they don't trust the OAS for different reasons. Each side has very strong objections to OAS getting involved in trying to mediate as a qualified trusted mediator. If the scenario where tomorrow nothing happens in tomorrow's meeting takes place, do you think this will have a negative impact on the organization reputation as a figure of you know, hemispheric, especially if Venezuela, you know, it seems like they'll be able to take the matter into the OAS. They're talking about holding an OAS meeting in Chile next week. So what will be the impact for the organization if that's what happened? Thank you. Well, I really much believe first that, by the way, I had written in my, in the things in which there is agreement, I was going to say that that everybody agrees that in Venezuela, except some very few people, that they should not trust the OAS. The opposition, because they feel they have called me chavista many times. And the government, because as you know, I wasn't the second leader of the, I wasn't the first, I was the second. Alan Garcia got the first insult from President Chavez. After that came several other presidents from the region that were about six or seven. So it's really very hard to, I would suggest that it's very hard to prove the hypothesis that I am at the service of the Venezuelan government when I have not been allowed to Venezuela since 1997, except for the funeral of President Chavez, except for the funeral of President Chavez. And whenever I have tried to go in times of normalcy, there has always been some problem that has not made it possible. The meeting to which I was going was suspended. They feel that probably it's a very low-level meeting for the Secretary General to attend, etc. So the first thing I should, I would say, to one side is look, I haven't been to Venezuela since 2007 because the government, except with the funeral of President Chavez, because not because I haven't wanted to go, but because I have not been accepted, admitted into the country or invited to the country. The Secretary General, who's hoped to be invited to the country and just to be admitted. As for the opposition, well, this is the only place where they can't come to talk. I mean, I don't see, I have never seen anybody on the opposition around the UNASUR, the CELAC, the Mercosur, or whatever. So at least they can go to the meetings of the OES and the meetings of the civil society. And as you know, a couple of years ago, last year, we had quite an incident in the meeting with the civil society between the Venezuelan ambassador and the... But that's as far as we could go, the opposition. But that's as far as we could go because let us... Look, I think that by my... I remember there was once an editorial in the... I think it was in the Universal, or some of the opposition Venezuelan newspapers saying, by the way, quoting somebody from the student, he said the Secretary General has to choose. He will represent the government or he will represent the people of the American. And I said, I represent the government because this is an organization of American states. This is the organization of American states. It's not the organization of the American people. And of course, we are assuming that if governments are democratic, they will represent the people. But my capacity to act is limited by the will of the government that formed the organization. That's a part of the rules of the game. There are no supranational organizations, no supranational organizations. In that sense, there are supranational organizations in the sense that some rules are over others. The Security Council of the UN, the one that always comes to mind. The OES has to do exactly as President, former Secretary General and President of Colombia, Alberto Geras Camargo said, the OES will be or will do what its member countries wanted to be or to do. Is that always being consensus though? No, not necessarily with bad votes. We've had votes. For example, I remember in the case of a problem between Costa Rica and Nicaragua and the matters of both the matters. There was a resolution approved by vote. And there could be, I mean, the countries usually tend to avoid the vote, but they have reached moments in which the vote has been taken or at least some countries have said that they have no objections, but they don't vote. In the assembly of human rights, it was clear that four countries were not willing to vote on the resolution. But they finally accepted the resolution that existed because they didn't want to appear as a minority. So many countries, many times it's expressed in a consensus, not really consensual in the sense that not everybody, but they're having votes. They're having votes. Remember, by the way, the UNASUR has not been able to choose its Secretary General for about a year because they don't have a consensus on the name. The OES votes on the election of the Secretary General and who gets one more vote than the other one gets elected. Consensus is a desire of every country, but there are rules for voting and we have taken votes. Let me get sir in the middle there with the microphone. Yes, Duke Banks, a concerned Venezuelan American. Two points on your presentation, Mr. Secretary. On the validity election last year, it was very close. The difference was, I think, less than 1 percent or 1.5 percent. Maduro promised that the results would be audited. The audit never has come, so I think a lot of Venezuelans still really wonder the validity of that election. Number two was your predecessor, Cesar Gavita, practically lived in Caracas for a while. There was dialogue at that time, but after that effort, there was a lot of agreements that the Chavista government really never honored, which is only, I think, causing that a lot of the opposition is very skeptical about the dialogue and who should be the mediator. Just two observations, but from that also, there have been editorials from various places, from El País in España or in Spain, not to mention the Washington Post here and a lot of that there has to be more of a sense that the Latin American countries need to actually get their act together and address the lack of democracy that is going on in Venezuela. And essentially, so I guess the question is, what leadership can be expected under your circumstances, which is very limited, as you've mentioned, but to show what can be done to essentially prompt the Latin American countries to basically recognize that a democracy is a lot more than just having an election? So let me just add to his question. So you see other bodies, for instance, in the United States Congress, for instance, you're familiar with things like resolutions expressing the viewpoints of the Senate or of the Congress on a bunch of different issues. Do you find the use, and this I guess it goes a little bit with what Stuís question was as well, but showing or relaying what your views are on a particular situation, it carries a lot of weight because of who you are and who you represent. Do you find that to be useful? And I would just focus on the issues of human rights, the issues of the press, the issues of dissent, and the issues of political prisoners in Venezuela. Do you find the use in showing your views on those issues or do you believe that that is useful or is it not useful? No, I think it's useful. I made two statements in Venezuela calling it to a dialogue, and I very much, without any false modesty, I would say that I think that they have been very useful. I mean several other people say, let's have a dialogue, but I mean the only choice for Venezuela is the dialogue, and that I think I was the first one to say it if I'm not wrong. Now, so I think it's very useful, and I do not disregard other, I spoke about human rights in one of those pronouncements, and maybe we will have to talk about them again. But if you ask me, if I can do, I mean, lead as some people, I don't believe in individual and empty leadership. When I went to, when the time I went to Nicaragua, I was just called about that and I learned it by well. They didn't want to, the Congress and the President didn't want me to go, and I mean the head of the opposition didn't want me to go, because the foreign minister of Nicaragua had arrived back home saying the Secretary General of the OAS is going to come to put order in Nicaragua. Nobody wanted to talk to me. I mean that's not the point. If you want to, if you go to countries because you feel, and I imagine Cesar Gaviria felt that, maybe he was, maybe, maybe events proved him wrong, but he felt that he could really mediate meaningfully among the suicides and the two sides were willing to talk to him. Now I don't think that it's possible to do, to do, to do, to do any kind of leadership if the countries don't want it. I mean, the big, the big difference between the UNASUR and the OAS is the United States. I mean, the other side is Celac. Celac, by the way, issued a very general, general decision, but the only, they said, between Celac, between Celac and the United States, and the OAS is the United States and Canada. So why don't the other side, if the OAS is not able to make a, to make a statement on the matter or to act on the matter, where else are you going to go? Where are you going to go? I mean, the countries are not, I mean, I think that there's one thing that you have to, I mean, it's difficult here in the US to, and I'm not saying because of anything wrong in the US, just because you're not there. And I went to the Celac meeting in Cuba. Of course, if you take the debate, the general debate and the things that President said, and you read the words, they have a lot of differences, enormous amount of differences. But the climate was a get-together climate. They wanted to stick together. That's the reality we have today. So unless you are able to convince them that something collective must be done, they will not do it. I mean, why is everybody talking about dialogue today in Venezuela? Who is this opposition? I mean, two months ago, three months ago, almost nobody believed that there was an opposition, a real opposition, I mean, a strong opposition. Of course, it was important politically. Here, one election, etc. But an opposition capable to mobilize in the way it has mobilized was not there. So the attitude of the international community will never be one of acting unless they feel that there is a crisis in the country, a real crisis. In this crisis, they are trying to promote a dialogue because they believe that the two actors are, I would say, more or less equally in matters of weight. And therefore, a dialogue must be played. By the way, just a clarification. We were not called to observe the elections in Venezuela. But what we usually do as an organization is respect the institutions and take what the institutions in charge of elections do. When there was a situation in Mexico seven years ago, we played with the election of President Calderón in which the separation in numbers was very small. We had not observed the election. And we said we are going to respect what the Mexican electoral tribunal says. We have to apply the same rule always. And that's what we did. I know, I know. I was meant to say that. I think that the problem was that nobody in Venezuela, nobody really, was prepared for such a narrow election. I think that the opposition would have celebrated even if they had four or five points difference because they came from a difference of 10 points against President Chávez. They were not well prepared for that. So they spent a lot of time discussing matters of procedure and what they would do, etc. I think that certainly that's true. I mean, all the strengths should have been made on the idea that President Maduro had to have a dialogue with the opposition. Before I get to the last question, I just want to follow up given this discussion. You know, elements of the opposition feel that if this is not dealt with, it could lead to some sort of civil war type of situation or confrontation. People in the government don't feel that it's that. How do you characterize what's happening in Venezuela? No, I think there's a, I mean, let me say something which is very, with Latin America, as you and me, that does that very well. I mean, this is carnival season. And there were even mobilizations in the big rallies in Caracas. I mean, not everybody, several people went on vacation. But if you are able to mount those rallies in the middle of the carnival, you're really doing something special. I think that they were made precisely to show that they meant it seriously and that the mobilization will continue. I think they will continue. And if not, and as I said before, I mean, I think that breakdowns take place. I saw it in my country, I mean, I mean, that memory comes very much to mind. If you don't deal with the basic issues that are dividing the society, you can have that problem forever. Get a microphone over here. This is the last question that we're going to take. Yes, I am Jorge Villan, Spanish ambassador to the US. I just want to address again the issue of UNASUR and MERCOSUR. You know that the issue, I mean, the crisis in Venezuela has been discussed there. MERCOSUR has been discussed also at UNASUR. I think that at the US, we had a very brief discussion from almost two weeks ago, not as a topic of the agenda, but in the last set point in Asuntos body. So I think it's good for the OAS to have this discussion. Don't you think, Secretary General, that it was a dangerous precedent, I mean, not to discuss the crisis at the OAS and when it has been treated in the other fora, maybe a future crisis could be, I mean, could have the same result and people say, you know, let's bring, let's take the issue to UNASUR. And then you talk about the meeting tomorrow. You said, I mean, you talk about the possibilities, but what is your personal opinion? I mean, not about what's going to happen, but what would you like to happen? Well, thank you very much. I really, like I said that it's, I mean, that when a country, I mean, when a country asks for a meeting of ministers to treat with some issue, he asks for that to the permanent council. And Panama did that more than a week ago, more than a week ago. I mean, it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that he has to address the Secretary General or the President. No, it says the permanent council. So the obvious thing to do and what is always being done is that the President of the council calls the council into session to discuss the matter. That happened on the middle of last week. Today is Wednesday on a Wednesday. We called the council to session on full Thursday. But the President was out of the country at that time. He did it on the phone. And the Vice President, who is the ambassador of Venezuela, said that this was illegal because he was the one that was supposed to call the meeting. And he did not call the meeting. And that he would start a lot of consultations on the matter. Well, the consultations lasted until yesterday morning in which the President came back to Washington and immediately called the meeting of the council. He was meant to call it for Wednesday. But we were made to know that today was the anniversary of the death of President Chavez, so probably it wasn't a good idea. So he called it for Thursday. I mean, I can tell you all the things that happened, but it had never happened that the council was not allowed to answer the request of an ambassador to the calling of a meeting of a consultation meeting of ministers. While the others, but all issued the statements, of course, the others don't need to issue the statements. The President consults them on the string. So they negotiate by phone. So it was easier. The only permanent functioning body of the Americas is the permanent council of the American state. But I think it's a shame that it has not been. It should have been already. And when it meets, it should be a proper meeting. It shouldn't be a private meeting or a secret meeting or nothing like that. It should be a proper meeting if there's concern that there will be some kind of disorder in the room. I would be willing to accommodate for that, if I understand that problem. But I think that, I mean, by the way, I think that this is worse for, I mean, the delay is not a good bargain. If we had talked about the matter a week ago, the language would have probably been less, I mean, what has been said all over the world about this would have happened. As I told the ambassador of Venezuela, we had had this meeting two weeks ago or 10 days ago, it would have been much more convenient for you. But for some reason, they decided to try to delay it and they delayed it. And that has created the concept which has created. And just to push on the second question that you had, what would you like to see happen tomorrow? What I would like to see happen is the clear statement from the council supporting the notion of dialogue and the meaningful dialogue in conditions of respect for human rights and the state of law and the rule of law. And the calling for an end of violence and investigation of the violence of the human rights that occurred. That would be at least what I would like to happen. Of course, and I am open if they want to ask for a mission. I would be open to that. But I'm not going to promote it myself because I already did. Well, I just want to thank everybody for coming. I want to thank you especially because you got a lot on your plate. And you took the time to do this. And that means a lot. We continue trying to bring awareness and understanding to these issues. I hope we've done a good job of doing that here today. Once again, thank all of you to people watching, to people here. We look forward to seeing you the next time. Thank you. And I want to thank Carlos because this is, as I said before, we said this appointment three times, but it finally worked. Thank you very much. Thank you.