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THIRTY-FOUR OAS MEMBER STATES SUPPORT PERU’S
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT OF PRESIDENT ALEJANDRO TOLEDO

  February 12, 2004

The Organization of American Status (OAS) Permanent Council today adopted by consensus a resolution expressing its “full and decisive support” for the constitutional government of the President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo Manrique, in his efforts to strengthen Peru’s democratic institutional process and, in particular, initiatives to achieve broad national consensus in order to strengthen institutional democratic processes in Peru.

Peru’s Ambassador to the OAS, Eduardo Ferrero Costa, outlining the latest political developments in his country, told the specially-convened Permanent Council session about the deep crisis facing President Toledo’s government, with a 54 per cent poverty rate and extreme poverty at 20 per cent, coupled with an “excruciating” external debt and incidences of corruption—inherited from the previous administration—“creating institutional instability.”

Ferrero Costa detailed President Toledo’s efforts, since he took office two years ago, to restore the rule of law and freedom of expression and to return Peru to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He stressed in particular the President’s efforts to combat poverty and corruption.

During the Permanent Council session, chaired by Canada’s Permanent Representative Ambassador Paul Durand, the member state representatives urged the government, political parties and civil society in Peru to support current efforts “to achieve points of national consensus that will ensure democratic stability.”

In its resolution, the hemispheric Council underscored the rules and principles enshrined in the OAS Charter and in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, citing as well the Declaration of Support for Peru in its Fight against Corruption and Impunity, adopted by the OAS General Assembly in Santiago, Chile, last June.

The OAS’ second highest decision-making body stressed that stable democratic processes in the region “are a shared objective of the hemispheric community, as is the fight against poverty, social exclusion and corruption.”

Reference: E-021/04