Washington, Dec 12 (EFE).- The Organization of American States wants to organize a meeting with foreign ministers of the Americas to address the crisis in Guatemala and has activated the procedure to send a commission to the Central American country.
The Permanent Council of the OAS, meeting in Washington, approved onTuesday, despite Guatemala’s against vote and El Salvador’s abstention, a resolution in which it declares itself “alarmed by the persistent destabilizing actions” of the Attorney General’s Office of the Central American country.
For this reason, the Pan-American organization undertook to initiate “broad consultations to determine the need to convene a consultative meeting of foreign ministers” to address this issue.
In addition, the Permanent Council instructed the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, to “urgently” request the “agreement” of the Guatemalan government so that representatives of the organization could make an official visit of “good offices” to the country as soon as possible.
In doing so, they are making explicit reference to Article 18 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which states that “when situations arise in a member state that could affect the development of the democratic political institutional process or the legitimate exercise of power, the Secretary General or the Permanent Council, with the prior consent of the government concerned, may organize visits and other measures to analyze the situation.”
In the adopted resolution, Member States also strongly condemned “the continuing abuse of power by the Attorney General’s Office and other public authorities of Guatemala.
They also expressed “serious concern about the continued political persecution and judicialization of the electoral and democratic transition processes.”
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Búcaro presented his remarks in a video to the Permanent Council, saying his government had respected the election results “from day one” and had “not taken any action” to block the transfer of power.
He also called on other countries in the region to “exercise prudence,” given that Guatemala “does not violate the international order,” he said.
US Ambassador to the OAS Francisco Mora spoke of a “disturbing pattern of anti-democratic actions” by Guatemalan authorities, including the “absurd attempt to annul the election results.”
Since progressive candidate Bernardo Arevalo of the Seed Movement won the presidential election in August, the Attorney General’s Office, headed by Consuelo Porras, has launched investigations against the president-elect, of his party, and election officials.
Civil society and international organizations, including the United Nations, the OAS, and the European Union, have denounced that the Attorney General’s Office has built a spurious case to annul the elections and prevent Arevalo from succeeding the outgoing president, Alejandro Giammattei, on Jan. 14.
Washington, which has sanctioned the leadership of the Attorney General’s Office for corruption, announced on Monday that it has banned the entry into the United States of one hundred Guatemalan deputies who voted last week to remove three electoral judges from office. EFE
er-mgr/dgp/mcd
