The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Uruguayan Luis Almagro, is being investigated for a relationship with a subordinate, although he flatly denies it.
It is an internal investigation for an intimate relationship with another person on the staff of this organization; sources familiar with the case confirmed to EFE.
The process opened “recently” evaluates whether the relationship with that woman, of which according to the source “everyone knows that she is his girlfriend”; It violates the internal ethical rules of that institution based in Washington and which is holding its assembly in Lima these days.
That internal regulation, as EFE learned, stipulates that “staff members and other service providers must not allow any relationship with another staff member or service provider to interfere with the performance of their duties or place other people at a disadvantage. in the workplace”.
It also establishes that those who have an intimate relationship with another staff member or service provider “will be disqualified from supervising or evaluating that person”; they may not “participate in any process in which an administrative decision affecting the interests of that person is taken or examined.”
Almagro is investigated for relationship with subordinate
The woman in question, Mirian Vidaurri, works in the Secretariat for the Strengthening of Democracy and not in the office of the secretary general; so she is not under Almagro’s mandate, the source added to EFE.
In the biography «Luis Almagro. He does not ask for forgiveness”, which Martín Natalevich and Gonzalo Ferreira published in 2020; The relationship between the two was already mentioned.
In the book, which contains interviews with Almagro and with the woman identified in the investigation; the secretary general assures that she was part of his “closest circle” in the OAS.
The authors detail that the Uruguayan began a relationship with the woman, who had worked in the organization since before Almagro arrived; after her second divorce. The last three couples of his, says the text, “he met them in the workplace.”
«The female sex has had a very important force. A very important engine»; notes the secretary general in the book.
Luis Almagro with Mirian Vidaurri.
He denies it with a quote from Rubén Darío
When asked by the authors of the book about his relationship with the then OAS official, who is younger than him; The secretary general responded with a quote from a poem by Rubén Darío: “With gray hair I approach the rose bushes in the garden.”
Almagro, denied this Friday having contravened the rules of the body; after an internal investigation was opened for an intimate relationship with another person on the staff.
«My team and I are very calm because we have always taken the appropriate measures to ensure that no situation contravened the rules of the organization»; Almagro said at a press conference in Lima at the end of the LII period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly.
Anonymous complaint
He assured that he was never “supervisor of any person” with whom “he had a relationship.” «I never promoted her nor did I ever increase her salary in any way that are the special conditions established in the code of work ethics»; she stressed her.
Regarding the investigation, he stated that he “directly received an anonymous complaint regarding a possible violation of the OAS code of ethics and work.”
After receiving the notification, he transferred the case to the inspector general’s office so that it could carry out the “corresponding investigations”; He affirmed that he is “willing to be more open to the work carried out” by the inspector in an “autonomous and independent” manner.
“I am going to be the least informed person in this process, because I am not going to participate in any phase of it, I will wait for the summons that the inspector general has to make to me for questioning or to contribute in any phase of the investigation”; he commented he.
Finally, he maintained that he is not going to refer to “any person with whom he has had any relationship”; because he is “very reserved” with his “private life”.
“I have always been and I will continue, that does not mean that I do not make all the information available to those who carry out the investigation, but it is not up to me to publicly point out non-public people because that is completely inappropriate”; he concluded she.
Namely
- Almagro is being investigated for his relationship with his subordinate, the former Uruguayan foreign minister, who has headed the OAS since 2015 and renewed for a second term of another five years in March 2020.
- His investigation has become known only two weeks after the Assembly of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) decided by majority the dismissal of its president, Mauricio Claver-Carone, for having an affair with a subordinate.
ACN/MAS/EFE
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