AIDE MEMOIRE
Background to the relations between the General Secretariat of the OAS and the
Association for the Promotion of the American Capital of Culture
At the LXXVII ordinary meeting of CEPCIDI, held on 28 February 2002, the
delegation of Chile presented for the consideration of CEPCIDI a draft Declaration of
Support for the American Capital of Culture. CEPCIDI decided to refer the proposal to
the Subcommittee on Partnership for Integral Development Policies of CEPCIDI for
study and, at the request of various delegations, invited the Department of Legal Services
of the OAS to prepare a paper on the background to the relationship between the General
Secretariat of the OAS and the Association for the Promotion of the American Capital of
Culture (hereinafter “the Association” or “CAC”). The present paper has been prepared
in response to that request.
I.
Institutional characteristics of the Association
1.
According to an informational document of the CAC provided to the OAS
General Secretariat in 1999 by Mr. Xavier Tudela, President of CAC, the Association
was established “at the initiative of a group of citizens concerned about and sensitive to
the cultural life of the American continent, with the aim of establishing the American
Capital of Culture and promoting its commemoration annually”. The Association’s
informational document adds that “the initiative would promote better understanding and
aid in the dissemination of the culture and history of the peoples of the Americas, in the
conservation and protection of their cultural heritage, in cultural exchanges and artistic
and literary creation, including in the audio-visual sector, and in the promotion of
cooperation among countries, both in the American continent and in other continents”,
and that this initiative drew its inspiration from a similar mechanism that exists in Europe
known as the European Capital of Culture
2.
According to a copy of the Statute of the Association for the Promotion of the
American Capital of Culture (Annex A) provided by Mr. Tudela, the latter was
established on March 30, 1998 “as a not-for-profit association whose purpose is to
establish and promote the celebration of the “American Capital of Culture”. (Article 1 of
the Statute). The Statute indicates that the Association is headquartered in Barcelona,
Spain, and the last page of the copy of the Statute states that the Association is legally
inscribed in the Barcelona Register of Associations, under the number 21022.
3.
The Association has an Assembly comprised of all its members as its supreme
organ. (It does not specify the frequency with which the Assembly meets or the number
of its members). It also has a Board of Directors, which is responsible for the
administration of the Association and is comprised of a President, a General Secretary
and a Treasurer (Article 8 of the Statute). The President of the Association implements
the decisions of the Board itself and oversees the day-to-day functioning of the
Association. He represents the Association in judicial and administrative matters and in
all civil forums. (Article 10 of the Statute). The Board of Directors is required to submit
reports on its management to the General Assembly. According to Article 16 of the
Statute, the resources of the Association are derived from: (1). Regular membership dues
which members pay, on a schedule and in such amounts as the Assembly may decide;
and (2). Extraordinary resources, such as donations, legacies or subsidies. Article 16
adds that at the time of its establishment the Association had no assets.
II.
Relations between the Association and the OAS General Secretariat
1.
During the month of September 1998, the President of the Association
sent notes to the Secretary General and to the Chairman of CEPCIDI, respectively,
explaining that the initiative of the American Capital of Culture was aimed at “helping to
promote greater understanding among the peoples of the Americas and to project the
American culture to other continents” and indicating other benefits which the initiative
will have. In the same notes, he indicated that January 1, 2000 would be the date on
which the first American Capital of Culture would be designated and requested “the
honorary support” of the OAS. (See Annex B). The Chairman of CEPCIDI, at the time
the Permanent Representative of Venezuela, Ambassador Francisco Papparoni, suggested
that the General Secretariat should study the background and give consideration to the
signing of an agreement of cooperation with the Association, as a non-governmental
organization.
2.
After a review of the Statute of the Association and considering that its
objectives were consistent with those of the Organization, in December 1998, the
Secretary General and the President of the Association subscribed to an Agreement of
Cooperation of a general nature1, in which the parties undertook to mutually cooperate in
matters of common interest and to exchange information, to consult each other on matters
of common interest, to explore the possibility of undertaking specific projects under
conditions to be agreed upon in each case, and to invite each other to designate observers
to attend meetings and conferences of interest to both institutions (Annex C).
3.
In July 1999, the Association designated as the American Capital of
Culture for 2000 the city of Yucatán, Mérida.
4.
In the month of August 2000, the City of Pereira, Colombia, was selected
by the CAC to be declared as the American Capital of Culture for the year 2001.
However, in the month of January 2001, the Mayor of Pereira declined the designation.
5.
On February 5, 2001, the newspaper “El Tiempo” of Bogota, Colombia, in
its Cultural Affairs section, published an article calling into question the procedures of
the Association for selecting the American Capital of Culture, insofar as the jury that
1
The basic elements of the Agreement included in the preambular part a commitment by member States of
the OAS to preserve and enrich the cultural heritage of the American peoples and the principal objectives
of the Association were, inter alia, to establish from 1 January 2000 the American Capital of Culture and to
promote annually its commemoration in order to promote knowledge about and disseminate the culture and
history of the peoples of the Americas, as well as to give impetus to the conservation and protection of their
cultural heritage and artistic and literary creations, and to promote cooperation and cultural exchanges
among countries, both in the Americas and in other continents.
2
selects the winning city is not an international jury unrelated to the Association but is
comprised almost exclusively of members of the Association and particularly of its Board
of Directors. It also questioned the lack of public information about the competition
between candidate cities and, particularly, the fact that the winning city had to pay to the
Association a sum of US$450,000 to be administered exclusively by the Association
without any participation by the authorities of the selected city. It indicated that the
Internet page of the CAC had gaps and did not provide information on “the background
of its President, Xavier Tudela, who was its cultural administrator” and that the only
entity which he cited as a reference is the OAS with which the Association has signed a
Cooperation Agreement about which no details are given. During the same month of
February, the weekly “La Revista Peninsular” of Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, published a
series of articles questioning the merit of the title of American Capital of Culture, the
amount of money that had to be paid to the CAC and the fact that various cities in
Colombia had declined the award when they learned of the cost it entailed. The articles
mentioned the OAS as the Organization that appeared to sponsor the abovementioned
Association.
6.
On February 10, 2001, the city of Cali also declined to be designated
American Capital of Culture, which, according to information gathered from newspapers,
was being asked to pay to the CAC the amount o US$475,000.
7.
In early May 2001, the Secretary General received a letter from the
Deputy of the LV Legislature of the State of Yucatán, Dr. José Limber Sosa Lara, in
which Dr. Sosa Lara asked what was the relationship between the OAS and the
Association for the Promotion of the American Capital of Culture. In the same letter,
Deputy Sosa Lara indicated that in 1999 it was learnt that the city of Mérida might be
designated the first American Capital of Culture for the year 2000 by the organization
known as the Organization for the Promotion of the American Capital of Culture, with a
view to promoting the city of Mérida worldwide. The letter also stated that the
abovementioned Association was claiming that it had the endorsement of the OAS, which
earned them trust and confidence, but that the Association did not indicate at the time that
the award would cost Mérida US$425,000.
8.
On May 23, 2001, the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General sent a
letter to Deputy Sosa Lara stating that in December 1998 the General Secretariat had
indeed signed an Agreement of Cooperation of a general character with the
abovementioned Association and adding that the Secretariat would study the situation
that had arisen and decide whether or not it was desirable to maintain the relationship of
cooperation that had been agreed upon with the abovementioned Association.
9.
The Office of Cultural Affairs obtained from the President of the
Association, Mr. Xavier Tudela, a copy of the documentation which the Association
sends to cities interested in competing for the title of American Capital of Culture; a copy
of the agreement which the city is required to sign with the CAC once it has been
selected, and the Management Report No.1 of the American Capital of Culture Mérida
2000, corresponding to the period of October 12 to December 20, 1999.
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10.
The Department of General Services studied all the available
documentation and made the following observations:


Apparently, the first information package which CAC sends to cities to
invite their candidacies for the title of American Capital of Culture is an
informational document which contains no mention of the cost. (See
Annex D). The main points in this informational document are item 6,
entitled “Application Form”, in which the candidate city is requested to
establish an Organising Committee for the activities which it intends to
organise if selected and to list the activities that it plans to organize; item
7, entitled “Timetable for the submission of candidacies for the period
2000 – 2004”, in which June 1999 was given as the deadline for applying
and October 1999 as the date for selecting the cities that would be the
American Capital of Culture in the years 2000-2004, respectively; and
item 8, entitled “Jury and nomination”, which states that the American
Capital of Culture will be selected from among all the candidacies
submitted, on the dates mentioned under item 7, by persons of recognized
international prestige. It adds that once the jury has selected from among
all the candidacies the city to be the American Capital of Culture, the
President of the Association and the highest municipal authority of the city
“will sign an agreement under which the title of American Capital of
Culture would be officially bestowed on the selected city for a period of
one year”.
The Model Agreement which CAC sends to the city selected as the
American Capital of Culture before officially awarding the city this title,
which must be signed by the Association and by the selected city (See
Annex E), contains an Annex 1 which contains three contractual clauses,
clause (a) of which states as follows2:
(a)
will pay to the International Non-Governmental
Organization of the American Capital of Culture the amount of $425,000
(four hundred and twenty-five thousand American dollars) as
compensation for the services rendered by the International NonGovernmental Organization of the American Capital of Culture. This
amount will be paid during the month of January of the year - .

The model Agreement mentions the types of services which the
Association would provide to the winning city in order to promote it but
does not specify the approximate number of events of each type that it
undertakes to organise nor does it offer a breakdown of the cost of
managing each event.
2
The text submitted to this Department is in English and is therefore reproduced here in the language in
which it was received.
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
In the documentation which the Association sends to the cities, there are
two references to the sponsorship by the OAS.
11.
Based on this background information, the Office of the Secretary General
concluded that it was not the role of the General Secretariat to sponsor an entity which,
even though registered as a not-for-profit international non-governmental organization,
charged cities of member States selected as winners a large sum of money as
compensation for its services, which, moreover, were not clearly specified. The decision
of the Office of the General Secretariat in no way implies a judgment on the manner in
which the cities of any of the member States of the OAS may decide to conduct its
relations with the Association. Nor has the Office of the Secretary General questioned
the legality of the activities of the Association. It has only expressed an opinion on the
desirability for the General Secretariat, through an Agreement of Cooperation, to be
endorsing the commercial activities of an international entity, which is alleged to be using
the name of the OAS to promote and sell its services. On that basis, the Chef de Cabinet
of the Secretary General, on May 24, 2001 sent a note to the President of the Association,
Mr. Xavier Tudela, stating that the General Secretariat was not in a position to continue
the cooperation agreement with the Association for the Promotion of the American
Capital of Culture. The note stated that, in accordance with the provisions of
ArticleX.10.3 of the Agreement, the General Secretariat was terminating the Agreement
with effect from August 24, 2001.
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