A new set of international initials

Last weekend saw the birth, in Caracas, of the CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), which seems to be one more recent case in the incessant process of creation, in Latin America, of international organizations known by their initials. A process resulting from the increasing prominence of the Iberoamerican region on the international scene, and of the growing globalization of international relations.

One diplomatic observer from the United States, not particularly impressed, has described it as the "Latin American epidemic of alphabetical organizations."

But the CELAC aims at being much more than a forum of debate. Its principal promoter, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, seconded by his lieutenants, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Evo Morales of Bolivia, hopes that it will serve to blight and undermine the existence of the OAS (Organization of American States), which, including every American nation except Canada, is dominated by the United States. Like Canada, the United States is not a member of Hugo Chávez's new international organization.

But even supposing that the so-called Bolivarian axis - Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua - in some measure manages to attract Brazil and Argentina into this grand demonstration of regional pan-nationalism, friends of Washington are not lacking in it, such as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who was careful to point out that the new organization was not conceived to operate against anyone: a position in which he was seconded, at the very least, by Mexico and Chile, as well as much of Central America and the Caribbean.

The Declaration and the Plan of Action of Caracas, approved by the 33 member states, constitutes little more than a minimal skeleton of an agreement, with the traditional repetition of mantras - if no doubt justified ones - such as rejection of the US embargo on Cuba; backing for Argentina in the dispute with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas); and the edifying exhortation to advance toward the integration of Latin America in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres, this last heading being a particularly complex one in view of the fact that, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese languages, English and French come into the picture throughout many of the Caribbean states.

The summit meeting was, in fact, one of a tentative, preparatory character, which left the discussion of everything substantial for some indefinite time in the future.

So, what exactly is the CELAC going to be: only a forum for debate, or an institutionalized organization in the ordinary sense of the word, possessing its own means for action? The first of these alternatives seems the more likely one. Only time will tell what purpose, if any, is served by this new set of initials.