Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Insulza was re-elected to a second five-year term Wednesday and promised a more proactive approach to fighting crime and promoting human rights.

"The people of our member states cry out for security," Insulza said, while praising Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit to Mexico on Tuesday to support the drug war. "We must ensure women's rights, human rights, worker's rights.... We are faced with the huge task to give the people of our hemisphere justice, voice and vote."

Yet Insulza, who won re-election by acclamation in the absence of any other candidate, tempered his rhetoric after ambassadors from states such as Venezuela and Nicaragua expressed fear of United States intervention. They called for Insulza to use his second term to maintain their states' sovereignty.

"This is not a police organization," Insulza proclaimed. "In this hemisphere all are equal.... The democratic reforms must come from the consent of the member states."

The OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report on Feb. 24 criticizing the erosion of free elections and a free press in Venezuela. Carmen Lomellin, the United States ambassador to the OAS, echoed criticism leveled by the State Department and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., that more efficiency at the OAS was needed to implement the Charter's bylaws on election oversight and human rights.

"We need more effective measures to counter threats to democratic processes in a state before they reach crisis stage and the willingness to use them," Lomellin said. "It is not enough to be democratically elected -- one must govern democratically."

Also re-elected to a second term without facing another candidate was OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin. Ramdin cited the group's small budget as a barrier to effective reform efforts and said the group might have to seek "funding from outside sources like private organizations." The budget for 2009 before contributions was $90 million, according to the OAS Web site.