The following is a translated version of an article that has been widely circulated in the Spanish-language media. Written by an anonymous individual with apparent internal knowledge of OAS affairs, it was edited and adapted by The Grayzone to take a closer look at Luis Almagro's disturbing record. Luis Almagro was re-elected as Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) with results that did not surprise anyone. For the next five years, Almagro will head the oldest multilateral organization in the world, overseeing the affairs of member states that comprise the western hemisphere. Almagro has been the most immoral and inconsistent Secretary General of the OAS in recent times. Its administration is widely questioned within the organization. But with the United States government - the OAS 'main financier - fully supporting it, it has trampled on all kinds of opposition to its agenda. The Secretary General passionately invokes democratic and human rights principles, citing the American Convention on Human Rights, the Democratic Charter, the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. But with his high rhetoric and his actions he blatantly contravenes them. Every action Almagro takes seems to be designed to cultivate a personal image that will facilitate his professional ambitions, and he advances in the role that his American puppeteers told him he should exercise in the international arena. Built from the belief of being the most influential leader of an international organization with a presence on social networks, vanity is a defining characteristic of Almagro. At the OAS, he has been a pioneer in the use of Twitter, as if international politics could be executed through social networks, while ignoring that the real actors are the democratically elected authorities of the Americas. Through his obsession with virtual politics, and ignoring legitimate representatives and the will of the people, he has revealed his contempt for democracy. His desire for power led him to jump onto the OAS leadership. In 2015, he pushed himself into a competition colored by the first stage of the open conflict between the United States and Venezuela, and the international optimism derived from the resumption of diplomatic contacts between Washington and Havana. Almagro then enjoyed a positive international reputation. He had served a term as foreign minister in the left-wing government of the Uruguayan José Mujica, and had cultivated the support of hemispheric leaders, left and right. His candidacy offered the omens of what was to come for the organization, now that it was clear that his campaign team developed a ruthless operation, with the support of the US government, to undermine any potential rival. After the resignation of the Peruvian Diego García Sayán, Almagro was the only one left standing. He assumed the general secretariat without any resistance. In his inaugural address on May 26, 2015, he stated that he was not interested in being the administrator of the OAS crisis but rather the facilitator of its renewal. Its predecessor, José Miguel Insulza, had prepared the organization for extensive reforms that it had called “the strategic vision”. But Almagro put a brake on the process as soon as he replaced Insulza. On several occasions during his campaign, he said that in order to regain the credibility of the OAS he would resign before the 2020 electoral campaign began. He said it was healthy for the organization to renew itself every five years with new perspectives and fresh dynamics. Today, however, we see Almagro entering his second term as Secretary General. Under Almagro's leadership, the organization's protracted institutional crisis has worsened. The regular budget has not increased and, on the contrary, continues to be sustained based on contributions from the United States government. Member states had proposed contribution quotas in hopes of guaranteeing the independence of the OAS. But Almagro has strictly avoided the issue of independence, ensuring that today, it is not discussed within the organization. This is largely a consequence of his obsession with promoting regime change in Venezuela. The OAS has a complex regulatory system, from its founding letter to the declarations, conventions, and decisions of the presidential summits, as well as systems that guarantee the protection of human rights through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But under Almagro, these efforts have been replaced by his focus on political issues. Under Almagro's leadership, for example, the comprehensive development agenda has been forgotten. The OAS has been absent from major international debates, where the hemisphere may have had a resounding voice, including the issues that unite the Americas and the Caribbean. Rather than taking the lead in promoting much-needed reforms, Almagro abandoned them to build his personal image and position himself as a global player. Almagro recruits his cronies, the corrupt and incompetent A reduction in resources during Almagro's administration caused a massive brain drain, with team members resigning in disarray. When the competent left the OAS, the Secretary General filled the organization with friends and political cronies that date back to his time as Foreign Minister of Uruguay. The circle around Almagro today is almost entirely Uruguayan. It includes the following figures: The circle that currently surrounds Almagro is almost entirely Uruguayan. And it includes the following figures: Diego Canepa, former Assistant Secretary of the Uruguayan Presidency. Luis Porto, former Undersecretary of Economy and also former Vice Chancellor of Uruguay. Gabriel Bidegain, former itinerant ambassador for the Mujica administration. Sergio Jellinek, publicist and social media specialist. He is the man behind the construction of Almagro's online image . . Gonzalo Koncke, former representative of Uruguay to the United Nations. Other recruits include Leonel Briozzo, a former Undersecretary of Health, and former Defense Minister Luis Rosadilla. Luis Porto , one of the closest to Almagro, was appointed principal advisor for strategy and organizational development of the OAS. He has a history of dubious contracts and documented corruption , which has led him to be sanctioned and disqualified from public service. Washington Abdala, a friend of Porto, at that time a deputy of the Uruguayan Colorado Party, seems to have been key to lifting those sanctions. Over time, these favors appear to have been paid for through contracts with the OAS. Juan Washington Abdala Remerciari, a lawyer known as “El Turco” Abdala in Uruguay, was appointed by Almagro as his special representative in the territorial conflict between Guatemala and Belize. This gave Abdala the rank of ambassador, with a lucrative salary and travel with all expenses paid. Before that, he had been hired with funds from the Mission to Support Corruption and Impunity in Honduras ( MACCIH ), but without consulting his authorities. Now Abdala has become a YouTube comedian famous for his impersonations of cartoon characters like Batman. His career offers a clear image of the seriousness of the Almagro clique. The number of Uruguayans that Almagro has taken to the OAS missions is impressive. Among them are Juan Pablo Corlazzoli (El Salvador), Edgardo Ortuño (Costa Rica), Juan Raúl Ferreira (Haiti), Sergio Abreu (Peru), Wilfredo Penco (Nicaragua), among others. Other Uruguayans, such as lawyers Marta Pachiotti and Beatriz Otero, were placed in influential positions within the MACCIH. In addition to the cronyism they embody, there is also a matter of professional competence. Almagro personally recruited Marta Pachitti, appointing her director of the MACCIH Criminal Justice Observatory. However, within the mission itself, many people pointed out that Pachiotti had no idea how the area assigned to him would work. Its oversight eventually made it an obstacle to the basic operation of the observatory. Pachiotti spent more than half of his time traveling to other countries for personal interests, paying people at the institution to do their job. Her subordinates characterize her as a racist and classist person, as evidenced in an audio published by Julio Arbizu, a Peruvian politician, who later forced Almagro to withdraw her from the MACCIH. Once again, Almagro and his friends' human rights discourse is revealed to be empty and opportunistic. Almagro's inner circle of Uruguayans are not the only questionable figures in the OAS. There is also the Mexican Francisco Guerrero, who occupied the strategic Secretariat for Political Affairs that Almagro later renamed as "Secretariat for the Strengthening of Democracy." Guerrero is a member of the PRI. During the last electoral cycle in his country, he served as adviser to the presidential campaign of the candidate José Antonio Meade. His record raises important questions: How is it possible that a top OAS official can become a campaign advisor to a candidate from a member country, and still be the head of the area where electoral observation missions are established? Let us not forget that the OAS observed the elections in Mexico. Clearly there was a serious conflict of interest. It also turns out that Guerrero is a friend of Jacobo Domínguez Gudini (also from the PRI), who was appointed to work at MACCIH. Domínguez was expelled by Honduran civil society for campaigning alongside the politicians of the ruling National Party, thereby compromising the independence of the OAS mission. But still, after being kicked out of Honduras, he was hired on Almagro's direct orders to work at OAS headquarters in Washinton for a salary of $ 10,000 a month. Nor can we forget that Domínguez also worked in the administration of the Mexican state of Veracruz under Javier Duarte - " the worst governor in history " -, sentenced to nine years in prison for money laundering, criminal association, and a long parade of atrocities. A group of experts from the American University in Washington DC published a June 2018 report where Almagro was directly blamed for the failures and obstacles of the MACCIH. The report concluded that, “in summary, the election of the OAS as the entity responsible for the MACCIH functioned as its detractors feared. His political career has reflected a weak and divided OAS, led by an impetuous and inconsistent Secretary General. ” Venezuela's obsession with Almagro divides the OAS and violates its constitution Almagro's interventions in the internal political affairs of member countries have completely reversed diplomatic progress in conflict resolution, deepening the division of the continent. Under Almagro's leadership, the hemisphere has become polarized around the Venezuela issue. The unilateral strategies of the organization and the actions of the Secretary General himself have proven to be a colossal failure. Confrontation and polarization have pulverized the confidence of the parties towards the OAS, breaking it among themselves, and dissolving important spaces for dialogue. In a surprising violation of his diplomatic mandate, Almagro threatened military intervention to topple the elected government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in September 2018. Its position represents an explicit violation of the OAS charter and the organization's raison d'être, as stated in its article 21: “The territory of a state is inviolable and cannot be subjected, even temporarily, to military occupation or other measures of force taken by another state, directly or indirectly, for no reason. " Article 3 stipulates that the person, sovereignty and independence of the states must be respected. Haughty behavior has generally undermined a series of organizational commitments to resolve conflicts through diplomatic and peaceful channels. Its obsession with Venezuela has eroded its leadership and has distracted the organization from addressing shared threats in the region. It is clear that the strategy that has been followed so far, plus the polarizing and hyper-confrontational role that Almagro has had, have not contributed to solving the political crisis in Venezuela. His re-election is sure to exacerbate the situation in the country, where a sector of the opposition has joined talks with the government despite Washington's uncompromising opposition. While Almagro focused his energy on regime change in Venezuela, the OAS has failed to take a position in defense of the rights of migrants, despite thousands of deaths and countless human rights violations. A disaster history sets the stage for a future of conflict. From a diplomatic perspective, a series of overwhelming mistakes were made, most of them with serious implications for the internal situation of the countries that make up the OAS: Almagro generated a very delicate conflict between Haiti and the Dominican Republic by not recognizing the sovereign spaces of both countries that share the island. He praised the pardon of the former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori, tormenting the victims of the violence that his regime committed. Almagro did so despite having protested days before. It called for new elections in Honduras in 2017, but thenrecognizedthe government supported by the United States, even after the OAS itself found evidence of massive fraud. Almagro expelled the MACCIH director in Honduras, Juan Jiménez Mayor, in a surprise move , resulting in a devastating letter from Mayor accusing Almagro of basically abandoning the mission. He secretly negotiated the Honduran government's support for sanctions against Venezuela at the OAS, in exchange for the weakening of MACCIH, a mission established by the OAS itself, whose investigations were beginning to embarrass the Honduran president (supported by the United States) and his buddies. In 2017, he made a deal with Michel Temer, the then President of Brazil, to use money from his country's huge debt to the OAS to finance IACHR actions against Venezuela. In return, Brazil received the silence of the organization in the face of the delicate social situation and the numerous corruption scandals that occurred under Temer. Almagro recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela without the consent of most of the member states. He published a report alleging alleged violations and irregularities that occurred in the Bolivian electoral process, which led directly to the coup d'état, generating an internal conflict that took 35 Bolivian lives. The report was carefully edited by researchers at MIT and the Center for Political and Economic Research ( CEPR ). For the past five years, Almagro has served the United States government and its own ambitions. His actions and opinions are not the result of consultations with most OAS member states, but his personal positions or those of those who support him in Washington. Almagro has led the organization to a dead end, shattering the possibilities of Latin American and Caribbean integration. Elected to a second term, he is all but certain plunge the hemispheric body into an unprecedented regional confrontation. Almagro has taken the organization to a blind street, destroying the possibilities of a Latin American and Caribbean integration. Elected for a second term, he is more than sure that he will plunge the hemispheric body into an unprecedented regional confrontation. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/27/almagro-corrupcion-amiguismo-conspiraciones-golpistas/#more-22588