:00:16. > :00:26.cities are among the most violent on earth. Crime is often fuelled by
:00:26. > :00:35.
:00:35. > :00:38.drug use and trafficking. So why are many leaders in the region softening
:00:38. > :00:41.their position on drugs? The OAS has just published a report revealing
:00:41. > :00:51.drug policy. It marks a radical departure from the war on drugs
:00:51. > :01:24.
:01:24. > :01:34.pushed by the United States and sets America moving closer to the
:01:34. > :01:35.
:01:35. > :01:44.decriminalisation of drugs? It is hard to say Latin America in this
:01:44. > :01:53.case. Some cities have a very high rate of crime. Some countries are
:01:53. > :02:03.among the most violent in the world. But some are like European cities or
:02:03. > :02:05.
:02:05. > :02:14.American cities. Like Chile.Or Montevideo. You are talking about
:02:14. > :02:19.Uruguay. There are different ways of looking at the problem of drugs in
:02:19. > :02:26.different countries. In some countries, the violence is the
:02:26. > :02:30.problem, in some countries the use is the problem. In countries in
:02:30. > :02:33.which there is the most violence, it is not the countries in which people
:02:33. > :02:42.use the most drugs, but the countries in which the drugs are
:02:42. > :02:45.moved from one place to another. OAS, which includes Canada, the
:02:45. > :02:54.United States, Latin America, you did not make policy recommendations,
:02:54. > :03:04.but the decriminalisation of illicit drugs is one of the options. Tell us
:03:04. > :03:06.
:03:06. > :03:14.what you said. We talk about decriminalisation of the use of
:03:14. > :03:21.drugs. If we agree that drug addiction is a disease, then you do
:03:21. > :03:31.not treat sick people as if they were criminals. You say you have to
:03:31. > :03:32.
:03:32. > :03:38.treat them. Sometimes you intern them. What did you decide? No policy
:03:38. > :03:43.recommendations. There has been a lot of debate. Is Latin America
:03:43. > :03:49.moving closer to decriminalisation? Let me tell you why I'm asking you
:03:49. > :03:58.that. The president of Guatemala has said that we should consider the
:03:58. > :04:01.decriminalisation of drugs. A new approach to try to take away the
:04:01. > :04:09.violent profit that comes with drugs trafficking, if the world thinks
:04:09. > :04:12.that is legalisation, I will welcome it. Nobody has really spoken very
:04:12. > :04:22.consistently about legalising drugs, except in some cases marijuana,
:04:22. > :04:28.
:04:28. > :04:32.which is already legal in some states of the United States. But not
:04:32. > :04:42.a federal government policy. But in California they sell medical
:04:42. > :04:48.
:04:48. > :04:56.marijuana. They will give you a dose very easily. In Latin America, there
:04:56. > :05:01.is no legalisation of marijuana anywhere. Before we go to the heart
:05:01. > :05:09.of drugs, is that about the legalisation? Nobody is proposing
:05:09. > :05:15.the legalisation of any drugs. president of Uruguay has proposed a
:05:15. > :05:23.law to allow people to buy marijuana. I agree marijuana is an
:05:23. > :05:33.issue. But not cocaine or heroin or any other drug. But I am asking
:05:33. > :05:36.
:05:36. > :05:41.about marijuana. Some countries may be moving towards legalising
:05:41. > :05:51.marijuana. Uruguay is a country with very low crime and has high usage of
:05:51. > :05:52.
:05:52. > :05:57.marijuana. They want to regulate it in a better way. And they feel that
:05:57. > :06:07.control of the sale and production is one way. Some countries may do
:06:07. > :06:09.
:06:09. > :06:19.it. What did your reports say about it? Just that. You must have a view
:06:19. > :06:20.
:06:20. > :06:27.on this. Should there be a decriminalisation of drugs,
:06:27. > :06:32.including the hard ones, in Latin America? In my country, private use
:06:32. > :06:38.of drugs is not penalised. You should not meddle with what a person
:06:38. > :06:44.does in his own life. Unless as an addict he is putting in danger other
:06:44. > :06:47.people or participating in criminal activities. You said you wanted to
:06:47. > :06:49.set up a debate in publishing this report about drug policy and that
:06:49. > :06:59.some people might call the aggressive war on drugs,
:06:59. > :07:00.
:07:00. > :07:07.particularly pushed by the United States. He said this was not the
:07:07. > :07:14.only way of dealing with this. What is the key recommendation? The key
:07:14. > :07:17.to this, for example, you spoke about the most violent countries. In
:07:17. > :07:23.Central America, drug consumption is very low but violence is very high
:07:23. > :07:25.because that is where the routes of drugs to the north are based.
:07:25. > :07:35.Central American countries should work together to reduce the
:07:35. > :07:39.
:07:39. > :07:45.violence. We should find ways of reducing the violence. I think that
:07:45. > :07:53.is a fair request because they are not big drug users. But they are big
:07:53. > :07:58.parts of the drug trade. Getting together with who? With all of the
:07:58. > :08:07.Americas. Share responsibilities, reduce demand, help us reduce the
:08:07. > :08:10.violence, help us keep up with the problems we're having. Let us not
:08:11. > :08:18.talk about the legalisation of drugs. Decriminalisation, which is
:08:18. > :08:21.different. That means not to penalise the people who use drugs.
:08:21. > :08:27.If they are sick people, you treat them as sick people, not as
:08:27. > :08:30.criminals. The perception is that the United States remains implacable
:08:30. > :08:39.to any kind of decriminalisation of drugs, whereas some leaders in Latin
:08:39. > :08:42.America have been discussing this. Pope Francis said a reduction in the
:08:42. > :08:45.spread and influence of drug addiction will not he achieved by a
:08:45. > :08:55.liberalisation of drug use as it is currently being proposed in parts of
:08:55. > :08:59.
:08:59. > :09:08.Latin America. Is the pope wrong? Nothing in that report speaks about
:09:08. > :09:14.liberalisation. You're saying Pope Francis is wrong? Liberalisation
:09:14. > :09:22.means everybody doing whatever they want. All of the proposals that
:09:22. > :09:28.exist have to do with regulation. The proposal is to regulate
:09:28. > :09:35.marijuana in a different way, never to liberalise it. Nobody is
:09:35. > :09:41.liberalising anything. Most of the Latin Americans are fully against
:09:41. > :09:46.legalisation of drugs. The government said they will not go
:09:46. > :09:53.against the will of the people. We are talking about some very simple
:09:53. > :10:01.measures. One is not to punish people who consume drugs, let's
:10:01. > :10:07.treat them. Even the United States has very sophisticated drug
:10:07. > :10:13.rehabilitation programmes. Much more now than before. War on drugs is not
:10:13. > :10:21.used any more. The people in charge of drugs in the US say they are not
:10:21. > :10:24.to say any more the war on drugs. there a perception of the softening
:10:24. > :10:27.of opposition, of liberalisation of drugs, that even Pope Francis said
:10:27. > :10:29.what he did, and then the US assistant Secretary of State saying
:10:29. > :10:39.that no international entity is going to dictate legalisation and
:10:39. > :10:42.
:10:42. > :10:52.certainly not to the United States? These comments are not emerging from
:10:52. > :10:53.
:10:53. > :10:59.nowhere. That is a debate that is open. The debate is open because we
:10:59. > :11:02.have been following a certain policy for 40 years now. Drugs continue to
:11:02. > :11:09.flow and people continue to fall into addiction and violence is ever
:11:09. > :11:14.more present. When you do something that does not work for 40 years, you
:11:14. > :11:17.have to find alternatives. We are not proposing the alternatives, we
:11:17. > :11:27.are telling people that these are the alternatives that exist and that
:11:27. > :11:34.
:11:34. > :11:38.I would be against that. Everybody would accept that something has gone
:11:38. > :11:42.wrong and you have put a lot of time and effort into looking into this
:11:42. > :11:47.problem and yet you are not really giving us a very clear or coherent
:11:47. > :11:49.response of the steps that you recommend states should take. We
:11:49. > :11:54.recommend that in countries in which violence exists, we should
:11:54. > :11:56.strengthen the institutions. Most of the violence takes place in
:11:56. > :11:59.countries where there are no legal institutions and impunity is very
:11:59. > :12:09.high and where violence can be committed without any fear of
:12:09. > :12:12.
:12:12. > :12:19.punishment or rule of law. We recommend to strengthen the systems
:12:19. > :12:22.of drug treatment in most of the countries. Only 18 of the 34
:12:22. > :12:32.republics of the Americas that are part of the OAS have systems with
:12:32. > :12:32.
:12:32. > :12:42.which to deal with drug addiction. We are recommending to deal with the
:12:42. > :12:47.
:12:48. > :12:50.flow of money of drugs, which is $151 billion a year in the Americas.
:12:50. > :12:54.This is a continent, you mentioned violence, this is a continent in
:12:54. > :13:02.which 47% of the cocaine that is consumed in the world is consumed in
:13:02. > :13:07.the Americas. That is a big amount and we have to try to reduce that
:13:07. > :13:10.and find better ways to do it. have discussed the drug situation
:13:10. > :13:19.and how perhaps America does seem to have a clear position that it does
:13:19. > :13:22.not want any kind of softening. Another example that a lot of people
:13:22. > :13:24.talk about between the growing divide in the American states is
:13:25. > :13:27.when you look at the anti-US statements that some leaders make,
:13:27. > :13:37.particularly in the Edward Snowden case, would you say anti-American
:13:37. > :13:51.
:13:51. > :13:54.sentiment is growing? I would not say so. In general, whether it is
:13:54. > :13:57.because Latin America has grown and there is less poverty or more
:13:57. > :14:07.democracy, it is true that many people in the Americas feel that
:14:07. > :14:11.
:14:11. > :14:14.they are not in the priorities of the United States. It is true that
:14:14. > :14:19.many people are not in the priorities of the United States.
:14:19. > :14:29.you have got to people like Evo Morales, president of Bolivia,
:14:29. > :14:35.saying the US still has a mentality of domination and suppression.
:14:35. > :14:39.problem with you people from developed countries, you need to
:14:39. > :14:49.speak about other countries. What about Argentina? President Cristina
:14:49. > :14:55.Fernandez de Kirchner .doc. It is a perfectly normal relationship. The
:14:55. > :15:05.President of Argentina said she complained about the US and other
:15:05. > :15:07.
:15:07. > :15:17.new forms of colonialism. That was in an arbitrary framework. What did
:15:17. > :15:18.
:15:18. > :15:28.that have to do with the United States, though? This was because of
:15:28. > :15:34.
:15:34. > :15:41.other requests? Did you assume that? I'm not in a position to assume
:15:41. > :15:45.anything. You were quoted as saying in a press conference that it is
:15:45. > :15:49.clear this is an event that goes beyond the explanations given.
:15:49. > :15:52.incident leaves a wound and the best way to heal that is to know what
:15:52. > :15:56.really happened and took pace. It sounds like you are being
:15:56. > :16:00.suspicious. I quoted the Supreme Court. Wounds heal in the sunlight.
:16:00. > :16:03.Sure. But I am asking you whether you thought... Have you ever heard
:16:03. > :16:12.that the President's plane is not allowed to pass through certain
:16:12. > :16:22.countries or land in countries? All the countries that were involved in
:16:22. > :16:35.
:16:35. > :16:38.this have asked for an excuse. The President has accepted those... You
:16:38. > :16:41.simply don't do that to a head of state of a democratic country
:16:41. > :16:44.crossing over your airspace. would you say that when Edward
:16:44. > :16:46.Snowden left the US, the countries that have offered him asylum are
:16:46. > :16:49.three Latin American ones. Venezuela says they will give humanitarian
:16:49. > :16:59.asylum, Nicaragua will provide a permit and Bolivia says he has been
:16:59. > :17:06.persecuted by the US. I will explain. Some countries don't accept
:17:06. > :17:16.the petition. But we have an institution in Latin America called
:17:16. > :17:18.
:17:18. > :17:22.the dramatic asylum, a very open form of asylum. Not practised in any
:17:22. > :17:32.other region in the world. That is derived from a time when political
:17:32. > :17:36.
:17:36. > :17:38.asylum was common. Then, it was obvious that anyone would ask Latin
:17:38. > :17:41.American countries for asylum because everybody knows they have a
:17:41. > :17:45.very open system of asylum. But they say Edward Snowden has been
:17:45. > :17:47.persecuted by the US in the case of Bolivia. And not all countries in
:17:47. > :17:50.the Organisation of American States accept that diplomatic principle you
:17:50. > :17:53.have just given. Julian Assange, for example, the WikiLeaks founder in
:17:53. > :17:59.the embassy in Ecuador in London, some Caribbean states and Canada
:18:00. > :18:06.said they don't accept this principle. Canada is not a Latin
:18:06. > :18:16.American country. This is the situation that exists in Latin
:18:16. > :18:18.
:18:18. > :18:23.America for at least a century. The other countries, no, it doesn't
:18:23. > :18:28.exist. It doesn't exist in Europe. All I am saying is, when you want
:18:28. > :18:31.something, you go to a country... For example, if you are running away
:18:31. > :18:41.from someone and you are afraid that you'll face extradition, you will go
:18:41. > :18:43.
:18:43. > :18:47.to a country that has no institution of extradition. When you want to
:18:47. > :18:52.request asylum to a country, your lawyers will tell you to look for a
:18:52. > :18:55.country in which asylum laws are very open. That is what this
:18:55. > :19:04.gentleman has done but it has nothing to do with a decision of
:19:04. > :19:07.Latin America to go against somebody. When that information was
:19:07. > :19:17.leaked by Edward Snowden, he alleged the US had been engaged in the
:19:17. > :19:21.
:19:21. > :19:23.monitoring of communications within Latin America. Not just because of
:19:23. > :19:26.drug trafficking but beyond that for commercial information, particularly
:19:26. > :19:29.on the oil industry. What did you make of those revelations? The big
:19:29. > :19:32.problem, different from the case of WikiLeaks, is not that there were
:19:32. > :19:35.some specific things that happened but rather that he put forward a
:19:35. > :19:45.revelation of a system to spy or find information that goes beyond
:19:45. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:00.what anybody in the world knows. I think that's it. That's an important
:20:00. > :20:07.thing to discuss. I know several countries, mainly countries in
:20:07. > :20:15.Europe, have requested from the US information. Only a couple of
:20:15. > :20:18.countries have asked that and I don't think... I don't imagine that
:20:18. > :20:27.there are vast problems of espionage for Latin America. We don't have any
:20:27. > :20:32.information on that. Brazil was very cross. Brazil is one of the
:20:32. > :20:35.countries asking for an explanation from the US. That whole incident
:20:35. > :20:45.about Edward Snowden, in particular the claims and the reaction it
:20:45. > :20:49.
:20:49. > :20:52.provoked in States... It proves intelligence is not that good.
:20:52. > :20:58.has been criticism of you that you, as secretary general, made a fuss
:20:58. > :21:01.about the Morales plane. But it was said that the OAS fails to uphold
:21:01. > :21:11.democratic principles. It was said you were quick to issue a press
:21:11. > :21:19.
:21:19. > :21:21.release about Morales' plane. But it was said to be a waste. That you
:21:21. > :21:27.don't hold accountable any despotic regimes that oppresses millions of
:21:27. > :21:36.people within our hemisphere. Whether you agree that there are
:21:36. > :21:39.despotic regimes or not, it was said there is a difference between... The
:21:39. > :21:42.OAS is an independent body which brings a lot of resolutions on and
:21:42. > :21:52.very strong resolutions, which has the full support of the secretary
:21:52. > :21:55.
:21:55. > :21:57.general. I don't... Maybe they can go into other matters but human
:21:58. > :22:00.rights, except for the European institutions on human rights, the
:22:01. > :22:10.commission and the court of human rights is one of the more
:22:11. > :22:13.
:22:13. > :22:17.prestigious bodies in the world on this matter. How effective is the
:22:17. > :22:26.OAS? You have been the secretary general since 2005. This is your
:22:26. > :22:35.second term. But the OAS has been criticised as an unburied corpse.
:22:35. > :22:45.Are you head of an unburied corpse? I don't think so. I wouldn't be here
:22:45. > :22:48.
:22:48. > :22:58.if I was. Everybody talks about us... Why do the Venezuelan... It's
:22:58. > :22:59.
:22:59. > :23:02.a lively institution. We have limitations. We are not a
:23:02. > :23:05.supranational organisation. We are a multilateral organisation.
:23:05. > :23:15.Therefore, we are ruled by member countries. For me, the member
:23:15. > :23:20.countries are equal. When I do something about one country, I
:23:20. > :23:24.should be willing to say it for another one. Some people want me to
:23:24. > :23:28.go against the elections in Venezuela. But they don't want me to
:23:28. > :23:34.go to elections in other countries. I have obligations to treat every
:23:34. > :23:41.country in the region in the same way. Some countries would like to
:23:41. > :23:49.have Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, out of the organisation. The people