Something very unusual happened at the 34-country Organization of American States (OAS) annual foreign ministers’ meeting last week: the United States and Mexico won a diplomatic victory over authoritarian populist governments that wanted a free hand to suppress human rights monitors and critical media. It’s a rare occurrence, because Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and other members of their radical-populist ALBA alliance — often backed by bigger countries such as Brazil and Argentina — had been steadily winning ground in recent years in their offensive to weaken OAS human rights and freedom of the press monitoring groups.
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