The Government of Peru, headed by President Dina Boluarte, ordered the definitive withdrawal of the Peruvian ambassador in Colombia due to the “repeated interfering and offensive expressions” of President Gustavo Petro.
The Peruvian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the Colombian president “persists in distorting reality” not knowing that former President Pedro Castillo carried out a coup on December 7, 2022 in that country.
“President Petro’s attitude, and his continuous meddling expressions, have seriously deteriorated the historic relationship of friendship, cooperation and mutual respect that has existed between Peru and Colombia“added the statement.
And he adds that, faced with this, Peru “has reacted in a balanced, progressive and proportional manner, in accordance with diplomatic practice and taking into account the close relationship that unites it with Colombia, for more than 200 years.”
However, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry points out that, with the definitive withdrawal of the Peruvian ambassador in Colombia, diplomatic relations between the two countries “formally remain at the level of charge d’affaires.”
“Peru hopes that the close and bicentennial bilateral relationship with Colombia resumes its path within the framework of mutual respect and the norms, principles and values that govern coexistence between States,” added the Foreign Ministry.
a strained relationship
Tensions between Colombia and Peru were on the rise. Gustavo Petro has been one of Castillo’s main defenders since the political crisis broke out in Peru and has asked, on several occasions, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIHD) to intervene so that the political rights of the former president are fulfilled.
According to the Colombian head of state, Castillo “was cornered from day one” and that by failing to mobilize the people who elected him “he allowed himself to be led to political and democratic suicide.”
“He was cornered from day one” and that by failing to mobilize the people who elected him “he allowed himself to be led to political and democratic suicide.”
For this reason, he asked the IACHR “to apply the American Convention on Human Rights and issue precautionary measures in favor of the president of Peru Pedro Castillo. The right to elect and be elected and to have an independent trial court have been violated.”
In fact, a few weeks ago Petro held a meeting at the Palacio de Nariño, in Bogotá, with Guido Croxatto, one of Castillo’s lawyerswho works hand in hand with the former judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Eugenio Zaffaroni in the international defense of the former president.
Hours later, a handwritten letter was released that Castillo sent to Petro from prison. In the letter, revealed by The Country Americathe former president thanks Petro for his “support and solidarity” after his arrest.
In mid-February, the president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, publicly asked Petro “that he dedicate himself to governing” his country and stop “inciting the Peruvian population” that has participated in anti-government protests since last December.
“From here I tell Mr. Petro that he dedicate himself to governing Colombia, that its streets are also filling up with protests and that he let us Peruvians resolve ours,” Boluarte declared at the time.
The president said at the time that she was “very sorry that certain presidents” of the region have opinions on the political and social crisis facing Peru, which has left dozens of people dead, and said that statements like Petro’s “are sad” for her country.
“I believe that the political situation we are experiencing is not alien to him, and from outside to continue to urge the Peruvian population is sad, we reject all kinds of interference in our history,” he emphasized.
Boluarte assumed the Presidency last December 7 by constitutional succession, after
I meet with Guido Croxatto, lawyer for the President of Peru Pedro Castillo. Croxatto with Zaffaroni, both Argentines, are part of the current that guarantees the basic right for a democracy pic.twitter.com/r2BlYqJBGW
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 16, 2023
Persona non grata’
The Peruvian Congress declared Petro persona non grata in February, rejecting his statements against the Peruvian National Police (PNP) and asked the authorities to guarantee that “it does not enter the national territory”.
The motion that raised this measure referred to some statements made by the Colombian president on February 10, when he mentioned the extensive deployment of the PNP in the historic center of Lima the day before, in response to an anti-government demonstration.
“In Peru, (the police) march like Nazis, against their own people, breaking the American Convention on Human Rights”said the Colombian president.
In response, the plenary session of the Peruvian Congress expressed its rejection of the “unacceptable” expressions of the Colombian president, considering that these constitute an “offense” to the PNP, the Peruvian State and “all the Jewish people” by “trivializing the holocaust”. .
For this reason, it declared him persona non grata and urged the interior and foreign ministries to carry out “the necessary steps” to guarantee that “it does not enter the national territory”.
Last January, the Peruvian government expressed through a diplomatic letter its “strong protest against a new act of interference” by Petro in internal politics, after it ruled on the eviction of hundreds of protesters at a university in Lima.
Parliament also approved at the end of last year a motion rejecting “the constant acts of interference in the internal affairs” of the country by Petro and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who have repeatedly come out in defense. de Castillo, after his failed self-coup.
The Boluarte government had shown its “deep discomfort” in December over Petro’s statements in support of Castillo, considering them an “unacceptable” interference in the country’s internal affairs in another diplomatic note.
WILLIAM MORENO HERNANDEZ
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
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