Above: Honduras’ Leonidas and Haiti’s Duly Brutus (OAS Photo/Juan Manuel Herrera)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Honduras’ Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, Leonidas Rosa Bautista, yesterday assumed the chair of the OAS Permanent Council, succeeding Haitian Ambassador Duly Brutus.

Rosa Bautista will hold the position for the next three months.

“The chairmanship that we begin now has the goal of continuing the tone of responsibility, affability and consensus,” established by Bautista’s predecessors, he said.

“During the period of Honduras’ chairmanship we are going to have two hemispheric events of great importance; the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena de Indias and the OAS General Assembly in Cochabamba [Bolivia],” Bautista said.

The Ambassador said this would mark the third of four countries in a row “bathed by the waters of the Caribbean” to assume the council’s chairmanship, promising to “stamp some of the joyful and festive nature of our warm and generous lands” on the position.

Bolivian Permanent Representative Ambassador Diego Pary assumed the role of Vice Chair of the Permanent Council, pending the return to Washington of Brazil’s Permanent Representative.