The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, has criticized the government for being blamed for «all the responsibility» for the thirty deaths caused by the repression of the protests in favor of former president Pedro Castillo and has reproached the press for not questioning «the other side of the violence».
«We have taken the necessary decisions to safeguard peace, tranquility and the lives of 33 million people (…). Here we cannot be putting all the responsibility on the Executive because we have not said ‘hey, go out to the streets and take over airports; hey, go out to the streets and set fire here or set fire there’. We need to look at the big picture», he justified.
«The press cannot come and say ‘you, you, you’. And what about the other side of the violence? What about those who have generated the violence? They are the ones responsible,» he said in an interview for the newspaper ‘La República’.
In this sense, Boluarte has accused other political leaders of «whipping up» the population to demonstrate and «deliberately distorting history», for which he will have to take responsibility, he said.
«Dina Boluarte did not provoke the violence», the president has defended herself, who has assured that neither she nor «anyone» could have imagined the «violence» that her inauguration would provoke after Castillo’s arrest. «It was not easy for the Executive to take the measures of declaring a state of national emergency», she said.
Questioned about her responsibility as supreme head of the Armed Forces, Boluarte has said that her government is giving all «the facilities» to the prosecutors to investigate these deaths, alleging that some agents are serious due to gunshot wounds. «We have confronted organizations such as drug trafficking and illegal mining. These are not people who walk with a white flag,» he has apologized.
Boluarte has insisted that his indications were to contain the violence that could arise in the protests «in a dissuasive manner» and with tear gas, emphasizing that he did not even give orders to use «what is allowed by law», such as rubber bullets «which are not lethal, but can cause impact».
Thus, when asked about the possibility of being investigated for the deaths of the demonstrators, the Peruvian president made it clear that this is not something that worries her, since the Executive acted «within the constitutional and legal framework».
The Peruvian president also stressed that her government «is not oblivious» to the pain of the families of the victims and asked the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to let them work before making hasty judgments on the origin of these deaths.
«We cannot be stigmatizing the work of the Armed Forces either», the Peruvian president demanded in a tense interview in which she reproached that the protests are not related to «unattended claims of social programs», but to «advance elections, closing of the Congress, Constituent Assembly, resignation of Dina Boluarte and release of Pedro Castillo».
In these, she has pointed out that she has no intention of continuing as President of Peru beyond her constitutional mandate and that the possibility of advancing elections for 2023 «so that the population can calm down» depends on the Congress. «They have the votes, not us,» she said.
Regarding the head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINI), Juan Carlos Liendo O’Connor, who described the protests as «terrorist insurgency», Boluarte stressed that changes will be made in the intelligence agency and said that they are considering his dismissal.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
