Caricom Secretary-general Edwin Carrington yesterday expressed shock and sadness at the sudden resignation, amid allegations of bribery, of the head of the Organisation of American States.

Secretary-general Miguel Angel Rodriguez, a former president of Costa Rica, resigned just two weeks into his five-year tenure.

Caricom had played the leading role in Rodriguez’ unanimous election as OAS Secretary General and Carrington was present for his ceremonial inauguration in Washington last month.

“While it is not for me, or Caricom to pass any judgement, I am shocked and saddened by this sudden development. He had held out such great promise with his vision for the OAS at his inauguration,” Carrington told the Sunday Observer.

Rodriguez’ resignation letter was read last Friday to a special session of the OAS permanent council. The resignation takes effect on Friday.

Within hours, the Costa Rican government issued an international detention order for the country’s former president but no formal charges have been filed.

The international detention order was delivered to the United States Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica, said Costa Rican officials.

Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco said he was “totally satisfied” with Rodriguez’ decision to resign, but said he should have done it sooner. “He has caused us enough shame,” said Pacheco.

The first allegations of wrongdoing against Rodriguez surfaced September 30 and prompted Pacheco to demand his resignation. Rodriguez decided to quit after Costa Rica’s Attorney General’s Department said he has no immunity from prosecution in the face of allegations that he accepted $140,000 in a deal involving the French telephone company Alcatel.

In his letter, Rodriguez said he did not want to subject the OAS to a “cruel and long persecution of its secretary-general,” not only in judicial proceedings but also in the media.

“With humility, pain and anguish, I ask you and your countries for forgiveness for making you endure this difficult period,” Rodriguez said in the letter that was read to the 34-member council by Costa Rica’s ambassador to the OAS, Luis Guardia.

Rodriguez did not attend the session and his whereabouts were not known. He also failed to show for a planned visit to Grenada to view the recent hurricane damage there.

Rodriguez acknowledged receiving the money but said it was a loan to finance his campaign for the OAS leadership, and he knew nothing of the alleged Alcatel payment. He would fight to clear his name, he said.

Rodriguez was sworn in on September 23 as chief of the world’s oldest regional organisation. Eleven hemisphere heads of state and government attended the ceremony at OAS headquarters in Washington.

The former Costa Rican president will be succeeded by the second-ranking official in the OAS, Luigi Einaudi, an American and a former State Department official with long experience in hemispheric issues.

Sunday Observer and wire service reports