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06/09/2005:

"Latin States Shun U.S. Plan to Watch Over Democracy"

WASHINGTON, June 8 - In a sharp setback for the Bush administration's Latin America policy, the Organization of American States rejected a United States plan on Tuesday to create a committee to monitor the exercise of democracy in the hemisphere.

Instead, the organization agreed, at a meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on a declaration that attaches equal or greater emphasis to attacking poverty because of what it calls "the interdependent relationship of democracy and social and economic development."

The organization, which represents 34 states of the Western Hemisphere, voted to approve the resolution at midnight on Tuesday, but the language was not completed until Wednesday by staff members who lingered after the formal meeting.

The United States professed to be satisfied with the final resolution, even though it bears little resemblance to the proposal the State Department introduced last week. The resolution does not include the element that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted it must have, a committee that would investigate troubled democracies.

On Sunday, en route to the organization's meeting of foreign ministers, Ms. Rice responded to a reporter's question about the growing opposition to the United States plan, by asking how the organization could be effective without a "mechanism that can help at times of crisis?"
Full: nytimes.com

"a mechanism that can help at times of crisis." I'm sure.