Fired ambassador turns guns on Panama government

Former OAS ambassador Guillermo Cochez did not go into retirement quietly. Before he was fired on Thursday, Jan 17, he sent a blistering letter to President Ricardo Martinelli.

It indicates confusion and mismanagement in the Foreign Ministry. And a government more focused on finding a presidential candidate than on foreign affairs.
La Estrella obtained an exclusive copy of the letter in which he criticized the timing of the Foreign Ministry and the government's management. La Prensa published a quote from Cochez that he would not reveal correspondence between the president and an “official”.
'Dear Sir:
I read with great shame the Foreign Ministry statement issued on January 16, ensuring that the speech by this server on the OAS Permanent Council on that day was not authorized and that it was improvised and without consultation . I say shame because I cannot think that our government is left frightened by the criticism and threats of Venezuela. As you know, What I say I say face to face and openly.
From December17 to January 10 this year I was in Panama. A total of 24 days when the Chancellery knew I was there. I was never able to meet with anyone, although they knew of my reports of meetings held with  the National Police and other public bodies. I met the Chancellor at the mall and it was more of just a greeting and I never got a word she had requested a meeting. I have no guilt about my work at the OAS although I have not received instructions or guidelines of any kind, and almost all my contacts are not even answered. I called Juan Carlos Espinoza to convey the message of the Chancellor but the reply was like one -that I receivedin June last in the  same mismatched and reckless terms forwarded by then Chancellor Henriquez and not even carrying a signature . My angry and timely response to it was never answered.
I felt that these days, everything seems focused on the search for a presidential candidate for the government, which had no time to discuss my work. Never before has there has been such a marked lack of instructions and guidelines. The message I I received yesterday I interpret as an intolerable scolding. Why do they do it now? Always, I have always acted according to my best democratic judgment and the best interests of my country and, in many cases, consulted directly with you.
My position in favor of democracy in Honduras, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Ecuador and Venezuela, in the three and a half years I've been in this position, have always been supported by you, for which I am deeply grateful. Just as you supported me repeatedly when reporting the lack of transparency in the OAS, Deputy Alvarez arrived to report t what he had discovered in the agency and to suggest that that he spoke with the Ambassador of Chile to ask him on behalf of his government to seek the resignation of Insulza.
When I accepted the position of Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the OAS I was known as a person deeply committed to democracy, belligerent in that subject, shown in many battlefields. My background in the international field and my concern for world events are part of my political education. That has been a feature of my public life for 49 years, since I was a member of Christian Democracy and in all the years I fought the military dictatorship, the Liberal governments of the past and the damaging corruption that has existed and exists in the country.

When you have these democratic values, they cannot be changed by an attractive salary. These values are priceless and are not negotiable, especially for someone like me, without wealth, only proud of the principles defended all my life, even under threat of death as when the military arrested me three weeks before the December 20, 1989. That's all I bequeath to my wife, my children and my grandchildren.
What comes to Latin America Panama will also suffer We must put a stop ahead of  this development of new ideological colonialism , encouraged by the profound social differences that persist in our villages. It's no secret that it is Cuba is that determines the political decisions of Venezuela, that  the current "government" of that country does not deny. Is that interference or not in a supposedly free country like Venezuela? Is it interference or not when the President of Nicaragua  spoke in opposition of Venezuel on January 10. Was it interference when the advisor of President Dilma Rousseff, Marco Aurelio Garcia,a a known Marxist, assumes the role of interpreting the Constitution of Venezuela?

That plan also affects Panama, where, as I have pointed out more than once, some of the protesters against the national government are infiltrated puffed and externally funded, whose origin is widely known and that you have accepted he situatIon  all know where they come from because for these pseudo-Marxists, and I call them 'green for the love they have for the dollar', 'the end justifies the means'. For them, however, the government that presides and to which I belong is 'oligarchic, repressive and exploitative of the people'.
As happened yesterday (Wednesday), despite the message from the Chancellery, my position has remained unaffected; even strengthened. I've been like Willy Cochez has always been, a Democrat through and through. I came to the OAS to defend its main pillars: democracy and human rights. Modesty aside, I think I lived up to that commitment and in all fields in the OAS and elsewhere have set up the name of Panama. I do not care that people say today we could not exist without the help of Venezuela gives them money, even though there is a shortage in their country of even toilet paper. Less do Icare what Venezuela's Ambassador to the OAS,says. I know from his days as a Christian social COPEI in Venezuela, where his biggest frustration is to be detested by his former colleagues, as a traitor, and equally by its current government , to be considered an upstart freeloader. All I could say, being "a jerk and a bad painter ', has been the subject of mockery by the international press offices.
Chairman: In my 67 years I will not change position. If the policy of the government of Panama will be to support the mistakes and illegalities and irregularities of the current government of Venezuela or other governments on the continent, you cannot count on me. I will never support the OAS or in another forum, support my country, God knows why, supporting the chaos that exists in Venezuela.

Therefore I urge you who appointed me to feel free to remove me, considering that I no longer represent the best interests of the country .