AFTER MORE THAN 50 YEARS OF DISCORD, THE OAS RECONNECTS CUBA
The Organization of American States (OAS) resumed formal dialogue after Secretary General José Miguel Inzulza travelled to Cuba to attend the II Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held on Jan. 28-29 in Havana.

Tensions between Cuba and the OAS began after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Three years later, the Caribbean country was excluded from the organization at the eighth summit held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, due to the accession of the island to Marxism-Leninism doctrine which—according the official OAS resolution—was incompatible with the alignment of the system.

Even though the OAS ended this restriction on Cuba in 2009, the island refused to rejoin the group during a General Assembly held in Honduras.“We won´t come back.” There is negative historical baggage tied to this organization as an instrument for American domination that cannot be solved by any reforms,”said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.

However, official spokesmen expressed their interest in the OAS Secretary General’s participation in the (CELAC), an alternative political forum established in 2011 by the then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Inzulza argued that both organizations are not incompatible and that they can coexist as political forums.

HISTORICAL COURT OF THE HAGUE RULING FOR MARITIME ZONE BETWEEN PERU AND CHILE
A maritime dispute that dragged on for six years was settled on Jan. 27, when the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favor of Peru assuming economic rights over an area of nearly 50,000 square sea kilometers that was a point of controversy for decades with its neighbor country, Chile.

The area’s annual catch valued at $200 million. Peru and Chile, in that order, are the top two exporters of fish meal— a major factor that led Chilean President Sebastián Piñera to express his dissatisfaction with the ruling in the Coin Palace. “This decision means that Chile must give economical rights to Peru in an area of about 20,000 to 22,000 km² west of the 80-mile (point).”

The demarcation drawn by the International Court of Justice put an end to decades of wrangling between the two neighboring countries over how to divide one of the richest fishing areas in the world. This topic has separated the two South American countries since the Pacific War of 1879–83, in which Peru lost territories and deprived Bolivia of its only coastline. It is not yet certain whether this sentence will include a limitation over territorial borders, especially over a 38,000 m2 called the “terrestrial triangle,” mentioned in a treaty in 1929.

Although, for the Chilean president, the maritime delimitation “confirms” its “dominion over the terrestrial triangle,” Peruvian President Ollanta Humala said that the resolution “does not prejudice or affect the intangibility of the land border established by the (treaty) and the work of the Joint Commission on the Limits of 1929 and 1930, that set its beginning at Concordia Point.