The harsh crisis that is plaguing Peru following Pedro Castillo’s attempt to carry out a coup d’état – for which he is still in prison – already left 7 people dead on Tuesday and a diplomatic front between that country and the governments of Colombia, Mexico , Argentina and Bolivia that have come together to support the imprisoned ex-president.
Indeed, the leaders of these last four nations – all of them from the left – came together to demand guarantees and respect for the integrity of the now prisoner Castillo and to maintain the result of the elections with which he became president a little over a year ago. But the current Peruvian government – headed by Dina Boluarte – read that message as an affront to its political and judicial sovereignty. A gesture of intrusion that must be rejected.
“The decisions contrary to the constitutional and democratic order adopted by former President Pedro Castillo Terrones on December 7, his decision to dissolve the Congress of the Republic and intervene in the Judiciary, the Public Ministry, the Constitutional Court and the National Board of Justice , among other measures, constitute a coup d’état”, clarified the Peruvian Foreign Ministry in its reply to the ‘partners’ of the detained ex-president.
But while this front of diplomatic bidding was opening, which Mexico finished heating up by assuring that Andrés Manuel López Obrador still recognizes Castillo as the legitimate president of Peru, the former president said from a cell that he did not intend to leave the position for which he was elected until the 2026.
He even urged the military and police to suspend what he described as a repression of the demonstrations that demand general elections and his release.
“I will never resign and abandon this popular cause that has brought me here. From here I would like to exhort the Armed Forces and the National Police to lay down their arms and stop killing this people thirsty for justice”, said Castillo.
And, in a tone that the opposition described as ironic, Castillo added that “I am unfairly and arbitrarily detained.” He said this in a virtual judicial hearing, in which it was decided not to release him and to classify the arrest warrant issued once morest him as legal.
“I have never committed a crime of conspiracy or rebellion,” he said, addressing Supreme Judge César San Martín, the same magistrate who sentenced former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) in 2009.
But while Castillo and his regional allies insist – without evidence – that the coup was once morest the imprisoned leftist and not encouraged by him, the main world power sided with the new term of President Boluarte.
Indeed, the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, assured – without nuances – that “we recognize the Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte, and we will continue working with the democratic institutions of Peru, because we hope to collaborate closely with the president and the State Peruvian”.
And Boluarte, for his part, tried to lower the state of tension that exists in Peru a bit and decided to throw a kind of olive branch at Castillo.
He assured that he knows the politician who was his vice-presidential formula well, for which he raised the thesis of a possible manipulation of Castillo to accuse her – via social networks – of being a “usurper”.
“I know the president, we have talked several times, many times we have hugged and cried, I do not think that these words that are appearing on Twitter (de Castillo) are not (his). They are using it, they continue to manipulate it,” warned Baluarte, who is seeking Congress to approve a bill to call general elections in April 2024.
Of course, in another statement made this Tuesday, the president warned that she will ask Congress to analyze whether that term can be brought forward, but she made it clear that she cannot agree to the request of a sector that is on the streets – which asks her to close the Legislature and call the elections now – remembering that, for this very reason, Castillo is in prison.
For now, there is expectation regarding how a crisis that tends to worsen and that already generates concerns in the region will be resolved.