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OAS Secretary General to Participate in Peru in Commemoration of the Tenth Year of the Inter-American Democratic Charter

  September 9, 2011

On September 11 and 12 the event “Dialogues on the Preservation and Promotion of Democracy in the Americas” will be held at the headquarters of the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to commemorate the 10 years of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a document approved by the Member States of the Organization of American States (OAS) during the General Assembly held in that country on September 11, 2001.

The event will be inaugurated by the President of the Republic, Ollanta Humala, and will feature the participation of the OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza. Also present will be the Acting Secretary General of the Andean Community, Adalid Contreras; the High Representative of MERCOSUR, Samuel Pinheiro Guimaraes; and the former Foreign Minister of Peru, Manuel Rodríguez Cuadros. The President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Diego García Sayán, and the Director General for Multilateral and Global Affairs of the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Luzmila Zanabria, will moderate the presentations, while the former President of Colombia and former OAS Secretary General, César Gaviria, will present some final thoughts. The closing session will be presided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, Rafael Roncagliolo.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru said the commemoration will serve to ratify the wishes of said country to contribute to the effectiveness of the strengthening of democracy in the region and will open a space for the experiences of other regional and sub-regional organizations that have adopted similar democratic instruments or documents. Among them: the 1995 Treaty on Democratic Security in Central America of the Central American Integration System (SICA); the 1998 Protocol of Ushuaia on the Democratic Commitment of MERCOSUR; the Additional Protocol to the Cartagena Agreement, “Commitment of the Andean Community with Democracy,” in 2000; the Additional Protocol to the Constitutive Treaty of UNASUR on the Commitment to Democracy; and the Special Declaration on the Defense of Democracy and the Constitutional order in Ibero-America of the Ibero-American Summit of 2010.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-827/11