OAS, UNDP and Carter Center Mission To Travel To Venezuela

Atlanta....A mission of the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Carter Center will visit Venezuela on September 9 to 13, 2002, in response to an invitation from the government and the various opposition groups in Coordinadora Democrática.

During its stay in the Venezuelan capital, the mission, composed of Fernando Jaramillo (OAS), Elena Martínez (UNDP), and Jennifer McCoy (Carter Center), will meet with senior government officials and members of the opposition, as well as with representatives of the Church, the media and civil society organizations.

The five-day visit will take place in the framework of a resolution adopted by the Permanent Council of the OAS on August 14, 2002, which reiterated the readiness of the Organization “to provide support and help as required by the Government of Venezuela to further the process of dialogue and consolidate its democratic process.”

In a letter directed to OAS Secretary General César Gaviria; to Mark Malloch Brown of the UNDP; and to President Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center, Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel requested “the support needed to help bring about a negotiated mechanism of rapprochement between the Government, the various opposition groups, and other sectors of national life.”

Likewise, in a letter sent to the Secretary General, the UNDP and the Carter Center, the Coordinadora Democrática of Venezuela thanked them for “the manifest and steadfast readiness to support and help Venezuela in its quest for ways to restore our traditionally democratic coexistence and the determination to find peaceful solutions to our conflicts and imbalances.”

Last July the mission, invited by the national government, paid a preparatory visit to the Venezuelan capital and offered its good offices to facilitate dialogue and the search for democratic agreements within the framework of the Constitution.

The members of the mission have stated their firm belief that, through dialogue among all the parties, it will be possible to achieve the national reconciliation and the strengthening of democracy that the Venezuelan people and the international community yearn for.

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