The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) announced on Friday the composition of the delegation that will travel to Peru to review the democratic situation in the country, including the foreign ministers of five Latin American countries.
The president of the Permanent Council of the OAS, Marten Schalkwijk, has detailed that the group that will analyze the political situation in Peru responds to the consultations made by the organization with the Presidency, as detailed in a statement.
The delegation will be composed of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Santiago Cafiero; the Minister of Ecuador, Juan Carlos Holguín; the Minister of Guatemala, Mario Búcaro; the Minister of Belize, Eamon Courtenay; and the Minister of Paraguay, Julio César Arriola.
They will also be accompanied by the Colombian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laura Gil; the Costa Rican Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian Guillermet and the OAS Foreign Affairs Representative, Eladio Loizaga.
However, the OAS has explained that the dates of the trip and the agenda of the high-level group on its visit to Peru will be defined «soon», without going into further details about the visit of this delegation.
The high-level group responds to the request to the OAS by the President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, to activate the Inter-American Democratic Charter in order to carry out an analysis of the democratic situation in the country.
The Peruvian Executive has justified the request by appealing to Articles 17 and 19 of the Democratic Charter, which allow an OAS member state to request a formal review by the organization in the event that «the Government of a State considers that its democratic political institutional process or its legitimate exercise of power is at risk».
This request by Castillo came barely a week after the Attorney General’s Office presented before Congress a constitutional accusation against the president, accusing him of alleged corruption.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Castillo would be the head of a criminal organization active in the Ministry of Transport and Communications in complicity with senior officials, businessmen and third parties, to favor the Tarata III Bridge consortium and other companies in public bidding processes.
In view of these accusations, the Peruvian president has assured that certain institutions of the country are carrying out a «political persecution» and has denounced a «new modality of coup d’état», at the same time he has qualified as «unconstitutional» the accusation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, since as president of the Republic of Peru, he can only be judged in certain assumptions.
