S.Amdt. 1182

SA 1182. Mr. MENENDEZ submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2346, making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of title XI, insert the following:

organization of american states

Sec. 1121. It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) the United States supports the Charter of the Organization of American States and the principles enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States; and

(2) Congress continues to support the Organization of American States as it operates in a manner consistent with the Charter of the Organization of American States, and, in particular, consistent with Articles 1, 3, and 7 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, as adopted by all the participating member countries of the Organization of American States, which state--

(A) in Article 1, that the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it, and that democracy is essential for the social, political, and economic development of the peoples of the Americas;

(B) in Article 3, that essential elements of representative democracy include, inter alia, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, access to and the exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law, the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based on secret balloting and universal suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people, the pluralistic system of political parties and organizations, and the separation of powers and independence of the branches of government; and

(C) in Article 7, that democracy is indispensable for the effective exercise of fundamental freedoms and human rights in their universality, indivisibility, and interdependence, embodied in the respective constitutions of states and in inter-American and international human rights instruments.