Democracy in the backyard

last updated 8 January 2015

Fort Lauderdale

President Bush this week urged leaders of the Organization of American States meeting in Florida to join forces to keep the region safe for democracy. The U.S. has proposed that the OAS establish a system to monitor the governments of the Americas to help prevent backsliding to authoritarianism. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leftist the Bush administration has called anti-democratic, rejected the idea in a radio address from Caracas, saying that the U.S. was meddling and trying to justify invading its neighbors. “The times in which the OAS was an instrument of the government of Washington are gone,” Chavez said.