In addition to the president’s flashy watches, Dina Boluarte’s government will be remembered for its silence. Its repeated silences to avoid questions from the lawyers of the victims who died protesting against her; its silence of more than 90 days with the press; and now its silence in observing or speaking out about two regulations that have aroused the concern of citizens and the international community: one that redefines the concept of criminal organization and one that will free from any judicial process those who have committed crimes against humanity or war crimes before July 2002, when the Rome Statute came into force in Peru.
This Friday, both projects were enacted by Congress despite the objection of various international organizations. According to the Public Ministry, this second law will free those prosecuted for 600 cases related to human rights violations. Various analysts have warned that it will directly benefit former president Alberto Fujimori — sentenced to 25 years in prison for various massacres, of which he only served 16 due to a humanitarian pardon — since it would nullify the trial he has pending for the Pativilca case, where he is accused of having orchestrated the murder of six farmers in 1992. At 86 years old, Fujimori intends to compete in the general elections of 2026.
The high commands of the military forces who, in the violent context of the last two decades of the last century, committed massacres against innocent people under suspicion of being terrorists will also be favored. There is the Colina Group, a paramilitary command that executed dozens of civilians and university students in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases; Commander Telmo Hurtado, who in 1985 ordered the annihilation of 69 Ayacucho residents; or the former Minister of the Interior Daniel Urresti, found guilty of the death of journalist Hugo Bustíos in 1988, when he was serving in the Army. The other beneficiaries, of course, will be the terrorist commanders, a detail that has been overlooked by its main promoters.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights opposed the new regulations from the beginning and reminded the Boluarte government of its international obligations, based on its adherence to the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights. “Otherwise, it would make access to justice for victims and their families illusory, both under domestic law and before the Inter-American System,” said its statement last Monday. A few weeks ago, in a letter signed by Boluarte and former Congressman Alejandro Soto, the government made clear the position of contempt that it has now endorsed. “We deeply deplore that the IACHR implies that Peru is not a constitutional State of law and that it lacks the mechanisms of a democratic Republic in which the balance and control of the powers that be operate,” they indicated.
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has regretted the officialisation of the law without any observation by the Executive Branch. “The law contravenes the country’s obligations under international law and is a worrying fact, in a broader context of setbacks in terms of human rights and the rule of law in Peru.” […] The lack of accountability for these crimes, whenever they have been committed, jeopardizes the rights to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition of thousands of victims of serious violations in Peru,” he says.
The other law passed establishes that, from now on, a group will qualify as a criminal organization if it has committed crimes whose penalties are higher than six years in prison. This will exclude a series of crimes such as illegal logging, organ trafficking, illicit trafficking of migrants, aggravated fraud, trafficking of fireworks, among others. As if that were not enough, it will weaken fiscal investigations because searches of criminals’ properties can only be carried out in the presence of the person under investigation and his lawyer, thus reducing the surprise effect in finding evidence.
Earlier this week, President Boluarte did not attend the commemoration of the bicentennial of the Battle of Junín, held in the province of the same name, citing “force majeure reasons.” While Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzén has said that her absence was due to a respiratory condition, local media claim that Boluarte simply did not want to risk being booed. Will she answer for the promulgation of these two laws? For the moment she has been consistent and has remained completely silent.
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