Situation in Bolivia (General policy of the Council of Europe)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on
29 September 1980 (14th Sitting) (see Doc. 4602, information report of the Political Affairs Committee,
and Doc. 4620, motion for a resolution). Text adopted by the Assembly
on 30 September 1980 (16thSitting).
The Assembly,
1. Stressing thefundamental right of peoples to self-determination
and to democratic development, and recalling its
Resolution 722 (1980) on human rights in Latin America;
2. Conscious of the obligation for solidarity among all democratic
countries to contribute to the victory of the political will of
the population and of democracy in Bolivia;
3. Considering that, following the general election on 29 June
1980, Hernan Siles Zuazo, to whom all democratic parties, from the
left to the moderate right, had pledged their support, was due to
be elected President of the Republic on 4 August 1980;
4. Appalled by the coup carried out by the generals in Luis
Garcia Meza's entourage, as an attempt to thwart the democratic
decision of the overwhelming majority of their own people by force
of arms and bombing ;
5. Scandalised by the inhuman treatment inflicted by the military
government on trade union leaders such as Juan Lechin and on ecclesiastical
figures such as Julio Tumiri and Mortimer Arias, who could be reproached only
with their devoted work in favour of social justice and the protection
of human rights;
6. Deploring the consequences of the coup d'état in Bolivia
for the development of the Andean Pact, an association of democratic
states, and thus for the progress of parliamentary democracy in
Latin America as a whole,
7. Welcomes and supports the resolution on Bolivia, adopted by
the European Parliament on 19 September 1980;
8. Condemns categorically the brutal coup d'état and persistent
violations of human rights by the dictatorial regime;
9. Calls upon the military regime:
9.1 to cease the systematic and arbitrary practice of torture
by the Bolivian police against thousands suspected of wishing to
oppose the present regime;
9.2 to suppress the concentration camps set up by the military
regime, and to release the political prisoners;
10. Expresses its solidarity with the sorely tried Bolivian people;
11. Calls upon the member states of the Council of Europe:
11.1 not to recognise the military
regime in Bolivia;
11.2 to discontinue all development aid while the military
regime in Bolivia remains in power;
11.3 to discontinue all economic and cultural aid to the military
dictatorship;
11.4 to support the demands of the legitimate Bolivian parties
for the constant presence in Bolivia of international organisations,
such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, to investigate
the situation;
11.5 to undertake to support the unrestricted exit of any
persons wishing to leave the country for political reasons, some
of whom have sought asylum in the embassies, and to receive these
political refugees and persons seeking asylum in the member states
without discrimination of any kind;
11.6 to suspend all negotiations and financial transactions
until a legitimate government is established in Bolivia;
11.7 to step up support for the democratically structured countries
of the Andean Pact who have already condemned the coup in Bolivia.
