2023-10-20 05:30:23
Since the unconstitutional dismissal of Pedro Castillo, Peruvian president, a rural teacher from Cajamarca, supported by Evo Morales, Petro and Amlo, last December, accused of an impossible flagrancy, which was also not reported by his captors (the police officers in his custody who pointed war machine guns at his children in an unnecessary and coup-like manner), who detained him violating the criminal procedural rules, because they detained him by a superior “order” – and not in flagrante delicto, the only possible source of detention (and dismissal! of a president) without impeachment – there has been a series of confusions, not always innocent, about his dismissal.
First, Congress violated its own regulations and emptied Castillo with fewer votes than required by law. This alone vitiates the legality of the vacancy. There is no motion for vacancy. The tax file does not exist. In any other case, this would unleash an international and legal scandal. Since he is a cholo from the mountains, a poor teacher, it seems less important. But it is not unimportant. It is very serious that a president (the first rural president in the country’s history) has been vacated with fewer votes than the law requires. Secondly, three articles of the Peruvian constitution were violated, which explicitly establishes the institutional mechanism to remove or suspend a president who intends to dissolve parliament without being authorized to do so. But it was not the procedure used by the Peruvian Congress: constitutional accusation for constitutional infringement. And not the vacancy due to alleged “moral incapacity”, a figure highly questioned by international organizations. The violation of rights is twofold: procedural and constitutional. The letter of the constitution was trampled. And he was removed from office with fewer votes than the minimum required by law. If the vacancy is void, because it was not implemented in accordance with the law, Castillo’s dismissal is illegal. And Castillo is still the Peruvian president.
Thirdly, from the criminal approach, there could be no flagrancy, because there was no crime; and in an inappropriate attempt, according to Peruvian legislation, there is no punishment. No police supported Castillo. The military made fun of him. Others covered their noses when he passed by, because they said he “smelled.” (That smell that rich Lima residents don’t like is the smell of the people, the people who went to protest when Castillo was overthrown). There could be less “flagrancy”. Fourthly, if there had been one, the detention does not need to be ordered by any “superior” unrelated to the procedure: the custody did not detain him “flagrantly”, but rather by an “order” that arrives while he is being taken to an embassy. (that is, not “in the act” of any blow, but with their children in a car); He was not arrested for – or by – any flagrante delicto. This summarizes a series of illegalities in the procedure. This means violating electoral rights. Violate democracy. They are not legal or academic “technicalities.” It is what legality establishes. No more no less. Written Peruvian law. Procedural, criminal and constitutional. It is curious that so many lawyers who usually make a show of blindly respecting constitutional “procedures” choose to look, like many judges, the other way. They are not seen as “neat” or “institutional” in this case.
The Peruvian Foreign Ministry is currently using “additional” millionaire allocations to try to “wash” the image of this dictatorship abroad. However, the UN Human Rights Council has just excluded Peru.
It is curious that the same congress that prevented Castillo from traveling to see Pope Francis or his European colleagues when he was invited by them, grants that authorization to a president without any legitimacy and who charges dozens of murders against her government, when not was invited. This paradox is explained politically: Boluarte relies on Fujimorism, with which Castillo never sat down to negotiate anything. That is why Castillo, being president and without having murdered anyone, could not leave the country, and this person, who usurps functions and has serious crimes on his back, is authorized to travel. A racist political paradox. They did not want Castillo to be the face of Peru in the eyes of the world: a cholo could not be president. The cholas are not allowed to look up from the floor, as at the Duchess of Barnechea’s wedding dedicated to celebrating “cultural diversity.”
There are 75 people dead, families destroyed. Do the lives that were taken matter so little?
The last objective of this article is to refute a trick often used by human rights organizations: to recognize the seriousness of the murders committed by the Peruvian State in response to the December protests, separating them, with curious prolixity (because practically all of them those murdered came from the regions where Castillo obtained 90% of the votes, Puno, Ayacucho, Cusco, Juliaca and were his adherents) of the illegal dismissal of Castillo and the forced exile of his family. But they are not two separate issues. They are united. Not mentioning the illegal dismissal of Castillo and talking about the deaths that followed on an international level but in isolation, is wanting to cut back on political and social reality. It is a confusing and non-transparent political strategy. We must tell the entirety of what happened: the deaths did not arise alone or by magic. They didn’t fall from the sky. Neither do the protests. They were the cholos and voters of Castillo del Sur who went to the center of Lima to protest against the irregular, illegal dismissal of his president. You cannot “separate” this, much less omit it. It must be said.
Treating the 75 deaths as a “separate” issue, as an “isolated” event from Castillo’s dismissal, when they were clearly murdered in the protests that occurred precisely to repudiate Castillo’s dismissal, is a legal and political error. And moral. These are two issues that should not be treated separately. They go together.
It is worth remembering that “Mr. Barnechea reacted with horror at the possibility of someone like Pedro Castillo becoming president and called for a civil-military union to interrupt the democratic process. The call was not echoed, but it showed the will to reverse the electoral process, to prevent a ‘cholo’ from coming to power.” This is what the upper class of Lima thought in their hearts. And this is what a good part of the Eurocentric academy thought (the same thing happened in Bolivia): that a cholo cannot be president.
#Viceroy #Barnechea #Page12