The governments of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia expressed this Monday “their deep concern over the recent events that resulted in the removal and detention of José Pedro Castillo,” whom they still consider president of Peru and who they see as “victim of undemocratic harassment.”
In a joint statement published by the Colombian Foreign Ministry, the four countries assured that Castillo is being subjected to “judicial treatment in the same violative manner” and asked that the “citizen will” expressed at the polls by the Peruvian people be respected. .
“Our governments call on all the actors involved in the previous process to prioritize the will of the citizens that was pronounced at the polls”, they said in the statement published following many of them have already expressed their concern regarding the crisis unleashed in Peru since Castillo decided to dissolve Congress, in what many saw as a coup, and was arrested for it.
With this call, they also ask “those who make up the institutions to refrain from reversing the popular will expressed with free suffrage” and the authorities to “fully respect the human rights of President Pedro Castillo and to guarantee him judicial protection.” .
Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo published a letter on Monday from his detention center, to which he was transferred following his dismissal last Wednesday by Congress, in which he wrote that he considers himself “kidnapped” and labeled President Dina as a “usurper”. Boluarte, who assumed the head of state following his dismissal.
Faced with this situation, the former president said in his letter on Monday that he is “unconditionally faithful to the popular and constitutional mandate” that he claims to hold “as president” and affirmed that he will not renounce his “high and sacred functions.”
Subsequently, he criticized Boluarte, elected as vice president in the formula that he led in the 2021 elections and who was sworn in as head of state following his dismissal. Especially, he questioned his proposal to advance general elections to April 2024.
Colombia, Argentina and Bolivia thus join the defense that Mexico has been making since the events and the statements by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that he had authorized Castillo’s asylum, while delaying the recognition of Boluarte as president. .
For its part, Colombia, which at first condemned “any attack once morest democracy, wherever it comes from” following Castillo’s pronouncement, then through its president Gustavo Petro called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to to issue precautionary measures in favor of “president” Castillo.
