“The Peruvian crisis in an international context”, by Farid Kahhat

The communiqué from the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico mentions issues that would deserve consideration, were it not for the fact that it contains an absolutely inexcusable omission: it makes no mention of the coup d’état and the attempt to submit all public powers to its control by Pedro Castillo.

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We alluded last week to the double standard that is usually implicit in supporting authoritarianism: abuse of power is justified when it is exercised in our favor, but not in favor of our political rivals. This is the case of sectors of the left that legitimately criticize the criminalization of social protest, but do not criticize either vandalism in protests or, for that matter, the sentences to decades in prison that the Cuban dictatorship foistes on those who protest against it. This is also the case of right-wing sectors that associate any social protest with vandalism and subversion, or demand that the Armed Forces fire at the protesters at will. Unfortunately, the statements by PNP General Óscar Arriola, head of Dircote, fall into this last category, according to which the MRTA (among other groups) is behind the violence in recent protests. As far as you can remember, no terrorist action has been attributed to the MRTA since the end of the last century. That is why the US Department of State removed the MRTA from its list of terrorist organizations in 2004: not because it had ceased to be a terrorist organization, but because it had ceased to exist.

What we did not say in the previous column is that there are conditions that make the deployment of this double standard more likely in the face of authoritarianism. Basically, in a context of serious political crisis, polarization leads to seeing the other not as a rival with legitimate claims, but as an existential enemy of the “nation” or the “people” (in the singular and without nuances, and to which is believed to represent exclusively).

A protester injured in clashes with the Police receives help in the center of Lima, Peru, on December 12, 2022. (Photo by Aldair Mejía / EFE) (Aldair Mejía /)

For example, the response of our Foreign Ministry to the statement from the aforementioned governments highlights the pronouncement of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (or IHR Commission), which recognizes “the immediate action of the institutions of Peru in defense of democracy to avoid the realization of the institutional breakdown”. This pronouncement would be incomprehensible if it endorses the version of Congressman Montoya, according to which the members of that commission would be “fixers of those who actually commit the abuses and excesses of human rights.”

On the one hand, part of the Peruvian left maintains (according to the case) that Castillo did not perpetrate a coup, that it was a mere attempt because the coup did not take place, or that he is not responsible for the coup because he was drugged and does not remember it ( although he did remember to ask for asylum to get rid of its consequences). On the other, part of the right believes that an OAS mission made up of a majority of conservative governments conspired in favor of Castillo, or that the OAS itself did so by unanimously admitting the application to Peru of the Inter-American Democratic Charter (which would make the governments of Bolsonaro, Biden and Trudeau accomplices in the conspiracy in favor of Castillo).

For the rest, as I will show in a future column, there is evidence that the critics of the OAS mission are unaware of their report. On the one hand they call it “final report”: the first two words of the very title of the document are “Preliminary report”. On the other hand, its critics attribute to the mission opinions that, in reality, are those of the people with whom it met in our country: the first thing that the respective section of the report warns is that “the quotes are made without personal references of authorship ”. It is not that the report cannot be criticized, but it should be read first.

Source: Elcomercio