Department for the Promotion of Peace

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OAS Political Missions Map

With the return of democracy to the region in the 80s and 90s, the OAS repositioned itself as the premier forum for multilateral dialogue and political consensus in the region. It helped diffuse more than a dozen attempts at altering the democratic order by invoking in the 1990s Resolution 1080, a mechanism designed to condemn and punish threats to democracy, and, as of 2001, by appealing to the Inter-American Democratic Charter, an OAS instrument which defines democracy and specifies how it should be defended when it is under threat. In all these cases, the OAS deployed good offices and facilitation missions to the affected countries and played a decisive role in resolving the complex political and institutional crises that had occurred.

Below you will find a description of these Missions.


RESOLUTION 1080
Country Year Explanation
Haiti 1991 Haitian military forces ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Peru 1992 President Alberto Fujimori illegally closed the Peruvian National Congress
Guatemala 1993 President Jorge Serrano suspended constitutional guarantees in a self-coup
Paraguay 1996 Army Commander General Lino Oviedo’s unwillingness to resign at President Juan Carlos Wasmosy’s request precipitated a constitutional crisis that threatened to interrupt Paraguay’s fragile democratic transition


Applications of the Inter-American Democratic Charter
Year Country Situation Application
2002 Venezuela Coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez Article 20
2003, 2005
and 2008
Bolivia Successive political crises and violent street protests General invocation
2004 Peru Confrontation between the State powers General invocation
2004 and 2005 Nicaragua Confrontation between President Enrique Bolaños and the Parliament Article 18
2005 Ecuador President Lúcio Gutiérrez removed the Supreme Court magistrates and unconstitutionally appointed new members Article 18
2009 Honduras Coup d’état against President Manuel Zelaya. Honduras is suspended from the OAS Article 20 and 21
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