From Lima
One hundred days have passed since the conservative and authoritarian restoration process with the government of Dina Boluarte. A right-wing restoration that is sustained by brutal repression and judicial persecution against social leaders and anti-government protesters. The tragic balance of the hundred days of Boluarte is 66 dead, 48 of them from shots fired by the police and the army during the protests demanding the departure of the president and of Congress and the advancement of the elections scheduled for 2026. The vast majority of deaths are residents of Andean indigenous communities. These crimes go unpunished. The parliamentary right and the hegemonic press encourage the repression, and together with the government criminalize the protests and applaud the security forces accused of shooting at protesters.
Boluarte replaced Pedro Castillo on December 7, after he was ousted and imprisoned after his failed attempt to shut down Congress. A 60-year-old lawyer and former mid-level official of the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status, Boluarte was unknown in politics until she rose to the vice presidency with the votes that made Pedro Castillo in president. The first thing she did upon assuming power was to betray the political principles and promises she raised in the campaign by allying herself with the right and ultra-right who had plotted to overthrow the government to which she belonged. Protests, repression and death have been the price of that betrayal.
the mutation
“The mutation, the change, that Boluarte has undergone is impressive,” he declared to Page 12 historian, anthropologist and political analyst Carlos Monge. “As soon as Castillo was dismissed for his absurd failed coup, Boluarte mutated, it was like a genetic change, a change of species, and she went on to establish a solid alliance with the same political sectors that had accused her of all kinds of things when she was part of the Castillo government. From a very close ally of a radical leftist project, at least in words but not in action, she has become the head of an authoritarian right-wing government. The fundamental reason for this change is ambition”.
The protests broke out after the fall of Castillo in the southern Andes – where he had his greatest support – and in the first two weeks of the Boluarte government, the repression caused 22 deaths. After a brief truce for the year-end holidays, on January 9, 18 protesters were shot dead in Juliaca, a city in the highland region of Puno, the epicenter of the largest protests. The repression fueled popular outrage. The protests and roadblocks increased, and the repression continued adding deaths, injuries and arrests. Residents of the Andean regions mobilized to take the protest to Lima. For participating in social mobilizations, leaders and demonstrators have been arbitrarily detained and denounced for terrorism and criminal organization. A policeman was shot dead and six soldiers drowned in a river when they were leaving an area of Puno after being expelled by peasants. Eleven civilians have died from not arriving on time at a health center and from accidents that the authorities attribute to roadblocks.
temporary withdrawal
The protests, hit by the repression and with signs of exhaustion after more than three months of mobilizations, have diminished, but have not subsided. The sensation is that of a temporary retreat. In Puno an indefinite strike is maintained. The rejection of the Government and Congress grows. According to a recent CPI survey, disapproval of Boluarte’s management is 76.1 percent (89.5 percent in the southern and central Andean regions) and his approval of 20.1 percent. The right-wing Congress that supports it has a rejection of 90.2 percent and a support of just 6.5 percent. 80.2 percent are in favor of early elections for this year, something that Congress has blocked.
He National Human Rights Coordinator has described the repressive actions as “crimes against humanity.” A argentine human rights mission who traveled to Peru has spoken in the same sense. Amnesty International has indicated that the actions of the security forces imply “crimes against international law” and has denounced that the repression has a racist bias against the Andean indigenous population. Eight rapporteurs have signed a document of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights denouncing “excessive use of force” and demanding “exhaustive, prompt, effective, impartial, and independent investigations.”
Genocide
The National Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation for genocide against Boluarte and some of his ministers, but there is little confidence in the real willingness of the National Prosecutor to investigate, Patricia Benavides, questioned for corruption and supported by the right. Benavides has weakened the human rights prosecutors and strengthened those for terrorism to prosecute leaders and protesters. The tax investigations into the police and military are advancing slowly, with no results so far.
Despite the evidence – autopsies, videos, testimonies – that the security forces have fired rifles at the population, the government insists that it has not ordered the use of lethal weapons. Boluarte and his ministers support the security forces accused of shooting against the population. The president launched the absurd accusation that the protesters had shot and killed each other. The government has described the police actions during the repression as “immaculate” and has said that the police officers accused of repressive excesses are “heroes” and has rewarded them with an economic bonus.
The sociologist and political analyst Alberto Adrianzén He pointed out to this newspaper that the origin of the Boluarte government was legal, but he specified that “it no longer has legitimacy due to the high level of rejection it arouses. “This is a repressive right-wing government that is legalizing the right-wing takeover of fundamental institutions of democracy, such as electoral bodies or the Constitutional Court (TC). Boluarte is part of a right-wing plan to take over the institutions to make sure he wins the next elections. She governs what she can govern, but the substantive measures are being taken by the Congress that controls the right.” Adrianzén He proposes that left-wing legislators leave the Congress with a right-wing majority “so as not to endorse, legitimize and legalize with their presence the outrages that are made in Congress against democracy.”
Monge, in turn, describes the Boluarte government as “authoritarian,” “ultra-conservative,” “mafioso in its relationship with illegal economies,” and “racist” for its attacks against the Quechua and Aymara populations. He points out that the government is sustained “in the military apparatus and minority political and business elites who only want to preserve their privileges.” He warns that “we are moving from an authoritarian government to an authoritarian regime, which is something much more serious.” He agrees with Adrianzén that there is a plan underway from the right to capture the electoral bodies and other institutions with a set of reforms, to ensure that someone from the left, a progressive, does not govern the country. “The ultra-conservative TC has just anointed Congress with almost absolute powers, generating a regime of parliamentary dictatorship, and from Congress they are going for the capture of electoral organizations.” Monge says that once this objective has been achieved, the right will drop Boluarte and give the green light to advance the elections. “When Boluarte has fulfilled his role in favor of the right, that right is going to tell him ‘you no longer serve me,’ as an elite family of Lima fires an old butler who served him with loyalty and devotion. Boluarte’s future is jail.”