Luis Almagro Goes off on Nicolás Maduro

Wow. That's all I can say after reading OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro's letter to Nicolás Maduro. It is the very definition of scathing. He is pissed.

I hope that no one commits the folly of carrying out a coup d’état against you, but also that you yourself do not do so. It is your duty. You have an obligation to public decency to hold the recall referendum in 2016, because when politics are polarized the decision must go back to the people. That is what the Constitution says. To deny the people that vote, to deny them the possibility of deciding, would make you just another petty dictator, like so many this Hemisphere has had.

There's plenty more in there as well. An important question is the degree to which he is saying what regional leaders are thinking but prefer not to say out loud. For an organization that Maduro (and Hugo Chávez before him) says is a tool of the United State, the OAS has been very cautious with regard to Venezuela. We'll have to see whether these sentiments get echoed elsewhere.