A week after being hit by corruption charges in the Costa Rican media, former Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodríguez (1998-2002) suddenly announced on October 8 that he was resigning from his position as secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS). His resignation will be effective on October 15, just one month after he took office. Rodríguez, the first Central American to head the OAS since it took on its current structure 56 years ago, was elected to a five-year term during the June 6-8 OAS summit in Quito. His predecessor, former Colombian president César Gaviria, served two terms, the maximum allowed. (El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 10/9/04 from unidentified wire services)
The Costa Rican daily La Nación quoted former Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) director José Antonio Lobo as saying on September 30 that he and Rodríguez had received a $2.4 million bribe from the French telecommunications giant Alcatel in 2001 when the company was negotiating a $149 million contract to install 400,000 cellphone lines in Costa Rica. According to Lobo, when he asked Rodríguez what to do with the funds, the president said Lobo should give him 60 percent and keep 40 percent for himself. Alcatel paid out a total of $9.6 million to the people who helped it win the contract, Lobo told the newspaper.
Rodríguez says he only took a $140,000 loan from Lobo; he denies knowing the money originated with Alcatel. As of October 9 the Costa Rican government had issued an international order for Rodríguez's arrest on or after October 16, the day after he leaves the OAS.
La Nación now reports that Rodríguez also took $100,000 from the Spanish firm Inabensa, which is developing an underground electrification project in San José. Current president Abel Pacheco said he felt "betrayed" by Rodríguez, a fellow leader of the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). But conservative Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer reports that Pacheco himself received a $100,000 contribution from Alcatel during his 2002 election campaign, as did his rival, and failed to report it to election authorities. Alcatel won a $109 million fixed telephone lines contract on May 14, 2002, a week after Pacheco took office on May 8. According to Oppenheimer, Alcatel has annual sales of $14 billion and operates in more than 130 countries. (MH 10/10/04; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/10/04 from AFP, DPA; Inter Press Service 10/9/04; ED-LP 10/9/04 from unidentified wire services)
The OAS assistant secretary general Luigi Einaudi, a former U.S. representative, will serve as interim secretary general until Rodríguez's replacement is selected. El Salvador and the other Central American countries want the new secretary general to be Central American. Only two Latin American countries have openly opposed this idea. Mexican foreign affairs secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said he favored former Chilean foreign minister Soledad Alvear, while Venezuelan foreign minister Jesús Pérez told reporters he was considering proposing his own candidate for the post. (LJ 10/10/04 from AFP, DPA; ED-LP 10/10/04 from AP)
In the fourth Summit of the Americas, held in Monterrey, Mexico in January, the OAS countries agreed to "deny refuge to corrupt officials." This came in response to an unsuccessful U.S. push to exclude corrupt or undemocratic countries from hemispheric organizations and meetings. Analysts said the U.S. proposal was aimed at the left-populist government of Venezuela and the leftist government of Cuba, the only country in the hemisphere currently excluded from the OAS. WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS, 10/10/04.
