Parlasur will promote an investigation on the river …

The Speaker of the Parliament of South America (Parlasur), Oscar Laborde has confirmed that he will promote an investigation of this body to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, for his role in the Bolivian crisis of 2019.

“The OAS played a decisive role in the outcome of the coup against Evo Morales. On Tuesday after the 2019 elections, won by the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the OAS said there were ‘signs of irregularities’. From there, Evo calls for new elections, but the right calls for the resignation of the president and the OAS, only on the basis of these presumed indications, did not say anything, explained Laborde.

In addition, the OAS hired two external consultants to investigate evidence of irregularities and there was never an opinion on these assessments. In other words, no evidence has ever been presented on this alleged fraud. Thus, as the decision to audit an election and the evaluation of this work are under the authority of the secretary general of the organization, the intention is that Almagro explains what the OAS relied on to say what he said, with the institutional consequences that had “added the Argentinian regional parliamentarian.

The point is, radicalized sectors of the Bolivian right-wing invoked the OAS report to launch a coup with the backing of the military and police that ultimately forced the resignation of Evo Morales, the November 11, 2019, to stop the escalation of violence, and its immediate march into exile, first in Mexico, then in Argentina.

The intention of Laborde, author of the proposal to investigate the role Almagro played in the Bolivian crisis, is to present it before the end of the year to the board of directors of Parlasur so that it can be discussed in January.

The board of directors is made up of Laborde, as president, and four vice-presidents: Daniel Caggiani (Uruguay), Arlindo Chinaglia (Brazil), Tomás Bittar (Paraguay) and Luis Emilio Rondón (Venezuela).

Laborde added that the role of the OAS in last year’s elections was “a shameless, headless thing” and demanded that this regional body admit “the terrible mistake it made in submitting the ‘Latin America and the Bolivian people’.

Considering that Parlasur is a regional body with representatives elected by popular suffrage but whose decisions are not binding, Laborde explained that “what will be done is an investigation and a request for explanations from the OAS that they will have to anyway bring before the ambassadors of each member country “.

However, the regional legislator recalled that the decisions and suggestions of Parlasur have a real impact, as was demonstrated when, on his suggestion, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Bolivia ruled in the days leading up to the elections of October 18, who dedicated Luis to the presidency. With more than 55% of the votes, suspend the system of dissemination of preliminary results (Direpe).

“This decision to suspend the Direpe has decompressed the climate of tension, which foresees possible acts of violence, and all the participants in the election awaited the confirmation of the official results”, explained Laborde.