MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

OAS unanimously condemns military revolt in Bolivia

Violent interruptions to democracies need to be “banished from our countries,” the Bolivian delegate stressed

The Organization of American States' General Assembly in session at Asunción, Paraguay, Thursday passed a “strong condemnation” of the attempted coup d'état in Bolivia the day before. The continental body dubbed Wednesday's events in La Paz a “threat to the constitutional regime.” It was also “a flagrant insubordination to the orders publicly expressed by the constitutional president Luis Arce Catacora,” the delegates concurred unanimously.

The resolution “on actions against democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia” was proposed at the initiative of the Chilean delegation and supported by several other countries.

The OAS also denounced any attempt to destabilize democratic institutions in the Plurinational State of Bolivia and expressed its solidarity with the people and government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, in defense of democracy and the rule of law. In its rationale, the General Assembly invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which establishes the constitutional subordination of all state institutions to the legally constituted civilian authority while respecting the rule of law.

“On behalf of the entire Bolivian government and people, our deepest gratitude to all the brotherly governments of the American community that have immediately expressed themselves in the face of the serious events that occurred in the city of La Paz,” Bolivia's delegate Héctor Arce stressed. He also highlighted the decisive and immediate action of the international community in defense of the life and human rights of the Bolivian people. Bolivia has suffered dozens of coups d'état, the most recent of them five years ago resulting in 38 deaths, the dignitary also pointed out.

“This fact reminds us that the most important challenge for our political systems is to guarantee the preeminence of representative democracy, and to find the formula so that violent interruptions to democracies are finally banished from our countries,” he added.