POEM: O.A.S., Roque Dalton, circa 1970

Editors, The Black Agenda Review

28 Oct 2026

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“The President of the United States is more/ the President of my country/ than the President of my country.”

In his collection Taberna y otros lugares (Taverns and other Places), winner of the Casa de las Americas prize in 1969, the Salvadoran poet and revolutionary Roque Dalton has a short poem titled “O.E.A.” Translated into English as “O.A.S.,” for the Organization of American States, Dalton’s poem offers a biting, satirical take on Caribbean and Latin American “leadership,” representing it as a merry-go-round of stooges and strongmen (and women) who are all, in the last analysis, servants of the imperial interests of the United States.

Dalton was tragically assassinated in 1975 by members of his own guerrilla organization, the leftist People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP). Even so, a half century after his death, based on “O.A.S,” one can easily imagine what he would make of “The President of [his] country at the moment,” the sadistic zionist crypto-bro Nayib Bukele. One can assume that for Dalton, “the President of the United States is more the President of [El Salvador] than” Bukele himself.
We reprint Roque Dalton’s “O.A.S.” below.

O.A.S.

Roque Dalton

The President of my country at the moment
is called Col. Fidel Sánchez Hernández.
But General Somoza, President of Nicaragua,
is also President of my country.
And Gen. Stroessner, President of Paraguay,
is also a little bit President of my country, though
less
Then the President of Honduras, General Lopez Arrelano,
and more than the President of Haiti,
Monsieur Duvalier.
And the President of the United States is more
the President of my country
than the President of my country.
The one who, as I've said, is called
at the moment Col. Fidel Sánchez Hernández

Roque Dalton, “O.A.S.,” published as “O.E.S.” in Taberna y otros lugares (Havana: Primera Casa de las Américas, 1969).

El Salvador

United States

Caribbean

Latin America

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