T&T joins regional call for calm amid Bolivia protests

Trinidad and To­ba­go is among 12 coun­tries in the Sheild of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive, ex­press­ing con­cern over on­go­ing protests and road block­ades in Bo­livia, warn­ing against ac­tions that could desta­bilise the South Amer­i­can na­tion’s de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment.

In a joint state­ment is­sued un­der the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive, the Gov­ern­ments of the Unit­ed States, Ar­genti­na, Bo­livia, Chile, Cos­ta Ri­ca, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ecuador, El Sal­vador, Guyana, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, Paraguay and Trinidad and To­ba­go called for the protests to re­main peace­ful and for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions to be re­spect­ed.

The state­ment said mem­ber coun­tries were “deeply con­cerned” about demon­stra­tions and block­ades which they claimed were aimed at “sub­vert­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der and desta­bil­is­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of Bo­livia”.

The coali­tion al­so voiced sup­port for the Bo­li­vian Gov­ern­ment and de­fend­ed its right to main­tain pub­lic or­der with­in the law.

“We stand with the gov­ern­ment of Bo­livia and call on pro­tes­tors to ex­press their con­cerns peace­ful­ly and to re­spect de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions,” the state­ment said.

It added: “When pro­test­ers re­sort to vi­o­lence, the gov­ern­ment has a le­git­i­mate in­ter­est in law­ful pro­tec­tion of the pub­lic or­der.”

The mem­ber states fur­ther warned against any at­tempts to re­move elect­ed gov­ern­ments through un­law­ful means, par­tic­u­lar­ly where crim­i­nal el­e­ments may be in­volved.

“We can­not al­low the over­throw of de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed lead­ers in our hemi­sphere, in­clud­ing when sup­port­ed by crim­i­nals and drug traf­fick­ers,” the state­ment stat­ed.

The de­c­la­ra­tion comes amid on­go­ing un­rest in Bo­livia, where road block­ades and protests have re­port­ed­ly dis­rupt­ed trans­porta­tion and the de­liv­ery of es­sen­tial sup­plies.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, the demon­stra­tions have hin­dered the dis­tri­b­u­tion of fu­el and med­ical sup­plies to sec­tions of the Bo­li­vian pop­u­la­tion.

The coali­tion al­so ref­er­enced ef­forts by Bo­li­vian Pres­i­dent Ro­dri­go Paz to sta­bilise the coun­try’s econ­o­my and in­sti­tu­tions, claim­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges af­ter years of mis­man­age­ment.

Mem­ber coun­tries said hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance had been pro­vid­ed to sup­port af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties in Bo­livia.

The Shield of the Amer­i­c­as, a re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing coun­tries across the West­ern Hemi­sphere, said it re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing democ­ra­cy, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty through­out the re­gion.