E-115-00
May
31, 2000
MEETING
OF HEMISPHERE'S FOREIGN MINISTERS TO CONSIDER
REPORT BY OAS ELECTORAL OBSERVATION MISSION IN PERU
Meeting in special session in Washington today, the Permanent Council
of the Organization of American States (OAS) decided to refer a report by
the Organization's Electoral Observation Mission in Peru to the hemisphere's
foreign ministers, who will be gathering in Windsor, Canada, from June 4 to
6.
The Permanent Council decision came after the Chief of the OAS
Electoral Observation Mission in Peru, Eduardo Stein, delivered a
preliminary report on the general elections in that country. Stein insisted
that, based on international standards, "the Peruvian electoral process
is far from free and fair."
OAS Secretary General C�sar Gaviria expressed support for the work
of the Electoral Observation Mission in Peru. He cited some of the most
serious problems the Mission's technical personnel had discovered just prior
to the run-off elections and pointed to the member states' increasing
requests for observation missions as a huge challenge for the Organization's
Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD).
Peru's Ambassador to the OAS, Beatriz Ramacciotti, said the elections
proceeded "normally, with a massive turn-out of Peruvians exercising
their right to vote�." The Peruvian diplomat also criticized the OAS
Observation Mission, particularly Mission Chief Eduardo Stein, saying the
former Guatemala foreign minister "far exceeded his mandate by his
frequent references to self-appointed powers to validate or not validate the
electoral process."
Ambassador Marcelo Ostria Trigo of Bolivia chaired the special
Permanent Council meeting at which several delegations expressed their views
and decided, in the end, to refer the matter to the dialogue of foreign
ministers scheduled to be held during the 30th regular session of
the OAS General Assembly.
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