By Gustavo A Maranges on February 19, 2023
Protest against Boularte continues in Peru, photo: EFE
Since the parliamentary coup d’état against Peru’s elected President, Pedro Castillo, Latin American countries have expressed their deep concern for the crisis following the event. Today, when the death toll due to police violence keeps growing, Peru is the only broken democracy in Latin America.
Despite the grave situation, the right-wing sectors ruling the country do not seem interested in finding a way out of the crisis. Last Friday, Congress ended its sessions with no agreement about the date for early elections, while a national dialogue to ease tensions seems a remote possibility, the government has not shown the slightest interest in at least considering some of the people’s demands. Hence, the re-establishment of democracy in Peru is not part of the oligarchy’s plans and perhaps never has been.
In this scenario, on Friday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) stated he won’t hand over the pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance to the Boluarte government, which he considers “spurious.” According to AMLO, handing over the presidency to a coup government, which Peruvians do not support, is equivalent to acknowledging the coup, something he is not willing to do as it means ignoring the Peruvian people’s struggle to reestablish democracy in the country.
According to the Pacific Alliance’s constitutive agreement, AMLO would have no reason not to pass the pro tempore presidency. However, proceeding with the handover is incongruous since the Mexican government does not recognize Boluarte as President. From a political point of view, this is a common sense decision by Mexico, which opposes the Human Rights violations and cracking down of democracy by the coup government, and demands people’s voices to be heard.
Faced with this dilemma, AMLO also announced he would let the final decision to the Rio Group, which is made up of Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Panama, and Peru itself. He will obey this collective decision since he considers it as the best and most collaborative solution to the current diplomatic controversy.
The pro tempore issue dates back to November 2022, when the same Congress that ousted Castillo on December 7, also banned him from attending the Pacific Alliance Summit in Mexico. There, Castillo was expected to get the presidency, but Congress impeded it. Faced with the Peruvian right wing’s boycott against Castillo, AMLO suspended the Summit and decided he would personally travel to Lima on December 14 to make the handover, which did not happen again since the coup took place a week earlier.
AMLO’s decision has been criticized by his country’s right-wing, which claims there was no coup in Peru but a constitutional transition. It is astonishing to see how the regional conservative forces coordinate and cooperate to legitimize their undemocratic actions.
This issue has strained relations between both countries to the maximum. Earlier, the relationship had plummeted after the Mexican Ambassador to Lima was expelled due to his actions to guarantee political asylum to Pedro Castillo and his family to save them from the police and judicial persecution unleashed against them.
A similar fate befell the Colombian Ambassador to Lima due to his criticism of the Boluarte government’s excessive repression of demonstrations. However, Peruvian authorities did not stop there and extended the qualification of “persona non grata” to Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The measure banning Petro from entering Peru passed by 77 out of 130 congressmen.
The proposal came from the head of Congress’ Committee of International Affairs, Maricarmen Alva, who is a member of Fujimori’s ultra-right-wing party Popular Action. According to the Congresswoman, Petro’s statements comparing Peru’s National Police to the Nazi forces, due to the repression against the people and the assassination of over 60 civilians, are unacceptable.
From the moment of the coup, Petro’s statements demanding respect for Castillo’s human and political rights have been considered as grievances by Peru’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. Evidently, the Peruvian oligarchy does not like to be pointed out for its inhuman behavior and political hypocrisy.
Alva did not miss the chance to escalate the war against the Peruvian left-wing forces and compared Petro to the Shining Path movement. She described the president’s statements as part of the international leftist campaign against the country’s police. Both statements lack any truth or basis, but they do show the high degree of political polarization and the strength of the media war waged by the right wing to cover its actions in Peru.
It seems that Peru’s conservatives intend to isolate the country from the region due to the strength of the leftist movements in neighboring countries. Following this strategy, Boluarte also signed a decree prohibiting Evo Morales from entering Peru, arguing he had carried out political proselytism during his last visit to the country. Ironically, the same argument should also make the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Ambassador in Lima Lisa Kenna eligible for bans, since both have made many public opinions about the internal affairs of Peru in recent months.
The current political-diplomatic crisis in Peru has divided Latin America based on the recognition of Boluarte’s government. On one side are Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and six other Caribbean countries, members of ALBA, who do not recognize the new government since it is the result of a coup d’état. On the other hand, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Brazil, and Ecuador have accepted it. They have been joined by the United States, Canada, the UN, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Paraguay have not yet made a statement.
Once again, the need for Latin America unity, as the only guarantee to solve the region’s problems, is evident. A common regional stance to face Boluarte’s Human Rights violations would have made a difference for Peruvian protesters, for sure. Meanwhile, the diplomatic crisis in Peru grows parallel to the political one with each measure taken by the new government, whose main interest is being on good terms with the United States and Europe.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US