The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) faces an internal investigation into allegations of having a consensual relationship with an aide, in a possible violation of the organization’s code of ethics, the Associated Press learned.
News of the relationship between Uruguayan Luis Almagro and a Mexican woman about 20 years his junior broke when delegates from 34 countries arrived in Peru’s capital this week for the annual OAS meeting.
However, within the Washington-based organization for the promotion of peace and democracy, this multi-year relationship was a secret of Pulcinella and a source of discomfort for some of the 600 employees, intimidated by having to work with the boss’s alleged mistress, according to several current and former employees and regional diplomats.
Three of them said they were seen kissing by the pool during the OAS General Assembly in Medellin in 2019. Another said they saw them holding hands in his office in mid-2020.
According to a former US official, the head of the OAS told him that this relationship was what caused his separation from his second wife upon his re-election in 2020.
Ethical code
The OAS code of ethics says that a staff member does not have to maintain an intimate relationship with a colleague in such a way as to “interfere with the performance of one’s duties or disadvantage others in the workplace”.
He adds that a boss should not exercise supervisory functions over the other person or benefit them in any way.
Almagro, 59, rejected repeated requests for statements from AP, but an OAS spokesperson denied ever being the woman’s supervisor, who he says has been working since 2019 at the Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy.
“Almagro has never participated in decisions regarding this employee’s interests within the OAS,” spokesman Gonzalo Espariz said in an email.
But in various guises online and in the photos with Almagro – also in March of this year and some published in the OSA accounts on social networks – it is said that the woman is “adviser” or sometimes “chief advisor” of the secretary general.
After the AP contacted the woman via her OAS email, her LinkedIn profile was changed to reflect that she is no longer a consultant to the organization. You said the OAS press office on unpaid leave since June, without explaining why.
The woman, who is not identified at the request of the OAS and because the investigation is still ongoing, also declined to comment but was widely quoted about the “very deep and very intense” relationship with her boss in a biography of Almagro. . , published at the end of 2020 in his native Uruguay, “Luis Almagro does not ask for forgiveness”.
In the biography, the head of the OAS declined to talk about the report and he limited himself to quoting the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío: “With gray hair I approach the rose bushes in the garden”. Almagro also claimed that “the female sex” was “a very important driver” in his professional ambitions.
Dismissal from the IDB
Less than two weeks ago, another U.S.-dominated regional organization, the Inter-American Development Bank, removed its president Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former White House official, facing similar allegations of favoring a subordinate with whom he was going to have an intimate relationship.
Unlike the IDB, which has hired a law firm to investigate the relationship, the OAS is apparently handling the matter internally.
The agency’s inspector general told the AP that he decided to investigate the matter after an anonymous, vague detail, complaint about a relationship between Almagro and an unidentified employee.
Almagro first received this complaint on June 3, then handed it over to the Inspector General.
The most recent report, dated July 31, refers to the matter as “alleged inappropriate conduct on the part of a senior OAS official”.
Source: AP
Source: Clarin
