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President Leonel Fernández Opens Model OAS in Santo Domingo

  February 11, 2011

The President of the Dominican Republic inaugurated yesterday the Model OAS for Dominican students. The ceremony, held at the headquarters of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, also was attended by the country’s First Lady, Dominican ministers and authorities, as well as the diplomatic corps and representatives of international organizations.

President Fernández said that “in Latin America we have been for more than 30 years, and for the first time in republican democratic history, post-independence, within a transparent, representative and legitimate system.”

Irene Klinger, Director of the OAS Department of International Affairs, who represented Secretary General José Miguel Insulza at the event, talked about the current issues to be debated by the students during this exercise: the conditions for the return of Honduras to the OAS according to the Inter-American Democratic Charter; collaborative efforts to confront the high rates of citizen insecurity in the Americas; and the commitment of the regional community to implement programs of reconstruction and development in Haiti.

Furthermore, Klinger highlighted that the youth represent 35 percent of the population of the Americas and urged the students to see in these great challenges on the regional and international agenda opportunities to help define their countries’ public policies and the way to collectively face common problems.

This Model of the inter-American system (MODOSI) is the result of a joint effort between the OAS and the “Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo” (FUNGLODE), the Association of the United Nations of the Dominican Republic (ANU-RD), and the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD), and is to be held February 9 to 11, 2011, at the facilities of FUNGLODE, with the participation of more than 300 high school and college students from the Dominican Republic.

For more information on the MOAS Program, visit www.moas.oas.org.

Reference: E-531/11