The Public Ministry opens proceedings against President Boluarte, her Prime Minister and two other senior cabinet officials for the death of almost fifty people in clashes between the Police and the protesters
Peru has experienced a new political gibberish. The Peruvian Congress has given its vote of confidence to the new government led by Prime Minister Alberto Otálora, despite the 47 deaths already registered during protests in the country, while the Attorney General’s Office announced an investigation into the cabinet and President Dina Boluarte for an alleged crime of genocide. None of this has been enough for the Executive to go through the process of being endorsed by Parliament as required by law, thirty days after its formation as an urgent way out of the self-coup of the detained former president Pedro Castillo. The growing harshness with which the security forces are used against the protesters and the institutional attitude, which today has decreed a day of national mourning for the deceased but has not been able to postpone the act of inauguration as a sign of respect, have exacerbated even more the spirits of the population and coined a broad criticism of the international community.
The Executive obtained from Parliament 73 votes in favor, 43 against and half a dozen abstentions in a session not exempt from accusations, demands for responsibilities and verbal excesses. The ratification of Otálora and his ministers showed the political division of the country: the entire right, led by Fuerza Popular, aligned with Fujimorismo, supported the cabinet while the left did the opposite. Positioning is important. It was the same left that in its day sheltered Boluarte in her first political steps and placed her next to Pedro Castillo in the last elections. Those were other times, before everything exploded during a complicated legislature plagued by changes of ministers and accusations of nepotism and corruption, whose climax was accelerated by Castillo himself with an embarrassing and ephemeral self-coup.
Deputy Guillermo Bermejo, from Peru Democrático, inaugurated the broadside by denying his support for the investiture because the government “is not right, nor does it have the people” on its side. Former Prime Minister Mirtha Vásquez complained that the institutional act had not been suspended in response to the human tragedy that the nation is experiencing. Another parliamentarian, Margot Agüero, from Peru Libre, exhibited a large poster that read ‘cabinet of death’. And many on the left-wing bench cheered him on, greeting the entry of the ministers into the chamber shouting “assassins.”
A group of parliamentarians protest against the Prime Minister, Alberto Otálora (seated, first left), and other government officials in the controversial confirmation session /
However, the most extreme intervention corresponded to the congressman of Peru Libre Wilson Quispe. He showed an arm smeared with red paint to the air and asked the prime minister if he wanted to “see more blood” after the almost fifty deaths already claimed by the repression of the protests. “That blood is the one that is watered in the region of Puno, Ayacucho, Apurímac and Andahuaylas,” he listed in reference to the departments where the revolts have been more tragic.
Alberto Otálora pretended to accept all the gestures, all the criticisms, all the complaints, with integrity. Criticism of the apparent indifference of the Executive before the excessiveness of the violence has already arisen and initiatives such as the one carried out by the funeral homes of Puno, which on Tuesday sent to the doors of the morgue of the Carlos Monge hospital in Juliaca, have not gone unnoticed. eighteen coffins for the relatives of the many others who died on Monday in this city to bury their own. The population and humanitarian organizations are already beginning to speak of these events as the “Juliaca massacre” while the tax investigation is underway to clarify the intervention of the security forces. At least nine of the deceased were from firearms.
Far from Juliaca, the prime minister, who arrived with his cabinet in heavily escorted buses to the headquarters of Parliament in Lima, assured that the entire Executive is “working for the country” and to “unite Peruvians.” Faced with the cries of “murderers”, he affirmed that the Police “guarantee the life of those who protest” and that “the use of force is regulated in established protocols.” He also relied on the open inquiries into the deadly altercations and stressed the need to preserve “the right of defense of police officers.”
Curiously, this was pronounced hours before the Attorney General’s Office announced that it was considering opening a “folder” against President Boluarte and various senior government officials for the Juliaca massacre. The head of the department, the prosecutor Patricia Benavides, has assured that “no death will go unpunished” and stressed the importance of investigations against “the senior officials who are responsible for everything that is happening.”
A crowd gathers in Cuzco to demand the resignation of the president of Peru for those who died as a result of the repression /
The preliminary investigations affect the president, the prime minister, Alberto Otálora, and their heads of Interior and Defense, Víctor Rojas and Jorge Chávez, respectively. Proceedings for alleged crimes of “genocide, qualified homicide and serious injuries” weigh on all of them, which the Prosecutor’s Office links to fifty deaths registered in recent weeks in the protests of Apurímac, La Libertad, Puno, Junín, Arequipa and Ayacucho. .
international reaction
The outrage is not only growing in the Andean community. Amnesty International has demanded that Boluarte “immediately cease” the “excessive use of force” against civilians. The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has directly dismissed the situation in Peru as a “massacre against the population.” His Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric, reminded Minister Otálora that the “State must always protect and respect human rights.” For its part, the United Nations has shown “deep concern” and called on the Peruvian security forces to guarantee that “force is only used when strictly necessary and, in such a case, fully respecting the principles of legality, precaution and proportionality. Finally, a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is already en route to the country to visit the southern regions that are the epicenter of the riots between today and Friday.
If the judicial investigations or the international reaction are of any use, it will be seen in the coming days. But the forecasts are pessimistic. In the midst of rising uncertainty among the population, which fears an even greater immersion in a bloodbath due to the irreconcilable positions, the prime minister has come to fuel fears by making it clear that there will be no room for riots nor will he leave that the mobilizations occupy Lima. In his speech in Parliament, he explained that he “will respond firmly” against what he considers a “coup hangover” and insisted that there is an attempt to perpetuate Pedro Castillo’s coup.
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