The OAS Building as a National Historic Landmark

Thank you, Mr. Chair,

The Dominican Delegation wishes first to thank Ambassador James Lambert, OAS Secretary for Hemispheric Affairs, for having requested the inclusion of this item in the order of business of this regular meeting of our Permanent Council.

We are likewise grateful for the words of Mr. Charles F. Sams III, Director of the United States National Park Service, offered on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior, Ms. Deb Haaland, whom we invited to address this forum in November of last year, while we held the Chair of our Permanent Council, to commemorate and celebrate this honorable distinction.

“...may all the Americas come to feel that for them this place is home, for it is theirs, the product of a common effort and the instrument of a common purpose.” (Excerpt from an address by United States Secretary of State Elihu Root on May 11, 1908, as given in the book The Pan American Union: Peace, Friendship, and Commerce, published by John Barrett, Director General of the Pan American Union from 1907 to 1920.)

Today, with great joy, our Permanent Council commemorates the designation by the United States Department of the Interior of the OAS Building as a “National Historic Landmark,” the highest level of recognition that can be given to a historic building in this country.

Today we pay tribute to this great work, inaugurated by United States President William H. Taft and other leaders of the Hemisphere on April 26, 1910. The construction of the OAS Building was made possible by the generosity of the American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, to whose memory we take this opportunity to pay tribute.

The building was erected on land donated by the Government of the United States and was at first the headquarters of the Pan American Union, founded in 1898, later becoming the main headquarters of our Organization of American States (OAS).

The OAS Building, completed more than 110 years ago, is without doubt one of the most emblematic places in this city of Washington, D.C. It is a work of architecture full of historical and cultural riches. But, above all, it has been a protagonist in, and at the same time a witness to, great events in the life of the peoples of the Americas.

Those of us who have had the opportunity to carry out our work within this important building look with joy and appreciation on its valuable features and spaces, notable among them the Hall of the Americas, one of the most beautiful halls in this city of Washington; the Hall of Heroes; the Aztec Patio; the Simón Bolívar Room; and the Art Museum of the Americas, to mention only a few. The building was designed by the architects Paul Cret and Albert Kelsey, and the fountain of the Aztec Patio by the sculptor Gertrude Whitney.

The building to which we pay tribute today has been the setting for, and at the same time a witness to, great events of every kind, some of them sad, above all when dialogue and negotiation did not achieve the desired effects. But for the most part it has been the place where great conflicts and tensions between member States of our Organization were resolved, and where, constantly, hundreds of leaders of the Hemisphere, including Secretaries General of the OAS, thousands of ambassadors, permanent representatives and alternate representatives, as well as officials of this Organization, have given the best of themselves in pursuit of peace and security, respect for human rights and the sustainable development of our peoples.

One of the events held in the OAS Building that deserves to be singled out is the signing of the Panama Canal treaties on September 7, 1977, some 45 years ago, in the Hall of the Americas, where the Heads of State who occupied the seats were witnesses, together with their host, to an act of justice, generosity and sovereignty whose protagonists were two sister States of our Hemisphere.

Among the valuable features of the OAS Building, the “Peace Tree” deserves mention; it was planted on the very day the building was inaugurated, April 26, 1910. This tree is a great symbol of our Organization, and in these times of despair and of threats to the world, we ask that, symbolically, its branches continue to grow and give life, in the search for peace and security in the Americas and the world.

Thank you very much.