OAS Finds Itself Newest Target of Protests

Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of the Organization of American States.

After working for decades in relative obscurity, the 34-member international body finds itself a target of diplomatic maneuvering and protesters at its 30th general assembly beginning today in Windsor, Ontario.

Protesters who disrupted a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December and tried to interrupt the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting in Washington, D.C., in April say the Canadian city is the next stop.

Although the official agenda lacks any trade issues that inspired demonstrations in Seattle and Washington, protesters say some of the broad issues being discussed--globalization and poverty--also involve free trade. Apparently gearing up for a confrontation, a group called the Coalition to Shut Down the OAS held a workshop Friday at the University of Windsor to discuss issues such as how to deal with pepper spray and protesters’ legal rights.

“We want to have some kind of voice,” said Jean Grossholtz, a professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian foreign minister and chairman of the OAS assembly, called threatened protests a “perverse response” to a meeting designed to discuss “human rights, democracy, corporate responsibility.”

“The very issues that the groups say they’re interested in, they’re trying to forestall by shutting the meeting down,” Axworthy said.

Officials in Windsor and the neighboring city of Detroit, just across the Detroit River, were shuttering windows and beefing up police presence in anticipation of protests. Police in both cities will have riot gear, and Windsor police will receive gas masks.

In addition, the OAS permanent council has asked the foreign ministers heading to Canada to consider possible action against Peru, where President Alberto Fujimori was the sole candidate in last week’s election runoff because his opponent, Alejandro Toledo, boycotted what he believed was an unfair process.