Media Center

Press Release

El Salvador: at the 41st OAS General Assembly, Foreign Ministers of the Americas will Debate Security: the Main Concern of Citizens

Citizen Security, the main concern of the citizens of the continent, will be the focus of debate during the Forty-First regular session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), which is to take place June 5-7, 2011, in the capital of El Salvador. Foreign ministers from throughout the hemisphere will meet in San Salvador seeking to establish greater coordination in the hemisphere, generate new initiatives to combat growing crime affecting the region, and address rising demand from citizens to rely on guarantees to develop and live freely.

Recent analyses and surveys confirm the urgency of addressing this issue at the highest political level. The last study conducted by Latinobarómetro states that "the population of Latin America and the Caribbean believed that protection against crime is the part of democracy that is less guaranteed." The report also identified that 90% of Latin Americans believe they may be the victims of a violent crime, and that the perception of crime has increased over the last decade from 9% in 2004 to 27% in 2010. The survey results reflect a significant change in the issues of concern to Latin Americans, who for nearly a decade reported unemployment as their main concern.

Similarly, the OAS Inter-American Observatory of Public Safety has probed with data from the countries that "the homicides in our region double the global average, and some countries in Latin America and Caribbean suffer the highest homicide rates in the world." According to these data, the rate of homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants in the hemisphere rose by 15.73 on average in 2009, and a high number of large cities in the region have homicide rates between 40 and 120 per 100 thousand inhabitants.

"This is a problem that not only threatens the safety, health, physical integrity and life of millions of inhabitants of the Americas, undermining individual freedoms and basic rights, but it also affects directly the fundamentals of economic development and threatens the integrity of the State and of democratic institutions in many countries of our region," said the OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, who also acknowledged that this is a pending issue in the region.

During the presentation of the Draft Declaration of San Salvador for the General Assembly at the Permanent Council, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, Hugo Martinez, explained that “citizen security is a public good that the States have the obligation of providing our citizens,” not only for the individual wellbeing of every one of them, but also because it will guarantee “the effective exercise of democracy, and through it progress towards a harmonious and supportive social coexistence, ensuring the enjoyment of citizen rights, and at the same time helping the strengthening of democratic institutions."

The threats and challenges to the security of people in the hemisphere include issues such as terrorism, natural disasters, pandemics, public and private corruption, the increasing sophistication and diversification of transnational organized crime, and drug and human trafficking. This surge in crime and the growing insecurity affects the entire society and undermines the quality of life of people who feel frightened and vulnerable to the constant threat of crimes and offenses.

In the framework of the OAS and in the regional multilateralism, specific initiatives have been created to address several of these problems. The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), established in 1986, served to identify new mechanisms of cooperation to fight corruption, drug trafficking and related crimes like money laundering. Similarly, in 1999, the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) was created to promote national, regional and international cooperation in preventing, combating, and eradicating terrorism in the Americas. In 2003, the Special Conference on Security was held in Mexico, where the Declaration on Security in the Americas was adopted and led to the creation of the OAS Secretariat for Multidimensional Security, of which CICAD and CICTE are part. Likewise, in order to strengthen cooperation in the field, the OAS has since 1997 sponsored regular meetings of the Ministers of Justice or Attorneys General of the region, and since 2008, a meeting of the Ministers of Public Security.

These and other programs like the Justice Studies Center of the Americas, OAS efforts to control firearms, and the fight against human trafficking are just some of the many mechanisms the OAS Member States can rely on to support efforts aimed at guaranteeing security for its citizens.

For three days at the June meeting in San Salvador, to be held at the Centro de Ferias y Convenciones (CIFCO), the governments of the Americas will seek to promote greater cooperation among themselves to face the existing challenges. The 2011 OAS General Assembly will look for agreement on issues such as hemispheric agreement between Member States on legislation on security, crime prevention instruments, redress and rehabilitation of victims, and social reintegration of offenders, as well as coordinated action on law enforcement.

The starting point of the debate in San Salvador will be based on the proposal by the Salvadoran government, which includes commitments and the recognition that citizen security is a public good that should be promoted by States in the framework of democracy and respect for human rights. This document also includes governments' intentions to eliminate threats from crime and violence, "to ensure full personal development and peaceful coexistence among citizens," and the recognition that citizen security involves the interrelation of multiple stakeholders, including national and local governments, civil society organizations, community, media, and the private and academic sectors, to strengthen the promotion of a culture of peace and to respond "in a participatory manner that is coordinated and integral to the complex threats to security in our countries."

The documents and general information about the 40th OAS General Assembly are available here: :http://www.oas.org/en/41ga

The 2010 Latinobarómetro report can be found here:http://www.latinobarometro.org/latino/LATContenidos.jsp
(Spanish only)

The OAS Inter-American Observatory of Public Safety: :http://www.oas.org/dsp/english/cpo_observatorio.asp

The Presentation of the Draft Declaration of San Salvador by Minsiter Hugo Martínez: :http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-565/11

Reference: E-658/11