The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said Thursday that Pedro Castillo «undoubtedly made a mistake» in trying to dissolve Congress, although he pointed out that part of this «political and democratic suicide» is due to the fact that he was «cornered» from the first day he took office.
«Undoubtedly Pedro Castillo was wrong to try to use the article of the Peruvian Constitution that allows dissolving the Congress that had already decided to remove him from office without respecting the popular will,» Petro has written on Twitter.
«Pedro Castillo for being a professor of the Sierra and popularly elected president was cornered from day one. He did not achieve the mobilization of the people who elected him, he allowed himself to be led to a political and democratic suicide,» he has assessed.
Although Petro defended that attacks on democracy cannot be fought with anti-democratic methods, he regretted the «parliamentary coup» that for months has been brewing in the Peruvian Congress against Castillo.
«When I met Pedro Castillo they were trying to raid the Government Palace to arrest his wife and daughter. He received me in a state of shock. A parliamentary coup was already underway against him. I was surprised that they were locked up in the Palace, isolated from the people who elected them», the Colombian president recalled.
In view of these maneuvers, Petro insisted that all Latin American political and social forces, both progressive and right-wing, be governed by the American Convention on Human Rights, despite the fact that today «not even the Secretary General» of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, «respects it».
«It is not with trials without crime, or with parliamentary coups, which progressivism should never imitate, that a peaceful, solid and democratic path will be built for Latin America», said Petro, who compared what happened in the Peruvian Congress to «the parliamentary coups in Paraguay and Honduras».
Petro warned that this path, which seeks to do away with political rivals without respecting the decision of the ballot box, is the one that «ended» with the former Chilean president Salvador Allende and «plunged the Americas into dictatorship».
«It will be up to the people of Peru, and no one else, to resolve the institutional crisis that has arisen and the absence of true representation. My greetings and respect to the great Peruvian people, those of the highlands and the desert,» he concluded.
This Wednesday, the Peruvian Congress approved the dismissal of Pedro Castillo shortly after he announced the closure of the Parliament and declared a government of exception, all this amid strong political pressure and investigations into alleged corruption against him, since he assumed power in July 2021.
Castillo now remains in detention for the alleged crime of rebellion after announcing that he was dissolving Congress, decreeing a government of exception and calling for new legislative elections.
