Dina Boluarte, President of Peru, with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico.AP
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has responded sharply to criticism from Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who has accused him of interfering in Peru’s internal affairs. López Obrador spoke out again this Monday in defense of former President Pedro Castillo, reiterating that his ousting “was a farce because the will of the Peruvian people was not respected, democracy was trampled on and a great injustice was committed by the ousting him and lock him up”. The Mexican President responds to the diplomatic escalation and describes the current Peruvian government as “de facto”, which he perceives as “authoritarian and repressive”.
López Obrador’s reaction comes after Boluarte decided to permanently withdraw his ambassador from the North American country, after declaring that he had “regarded the statements made by the Mexican President on Peru’s internal affairs and his unacceptable questions, which the formula so repeated on… Constitution and democratic origins of my government”. Boluarte has accused López Obrador of “supporting the coup d’état of former President Pedro Castillo, the same one that led to the unanimous rejection of the institutions that make up the democratic order in Peru”. Mexico regretted the withdrawal of the Peruvian diplomat over the weekend and promised not to close communication channels with the Andean country. “[El Gobierno de México] She hopes that a democratic settlement will soon be reached on the disagreements that prevail in this Latin American sister country,” Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
However, the conciliatory tone of this text contrasts with the criticism of López Obrador. The Mexican President, during his morning press conference this Monday, has branded himself a “puppet, puppet, ruler in the vein” of the current Peruvian president, and has also filed charges against the Peruvian Congress, which he accuses of serving the interests of big capital and foreign companies, “like us have suffered here for more than 30 years, that all constitutional reforms carried out should favor a predatory minority and hand over public assets, the nation’s assets, to domestic and foreign companies; the privatization process; It’s the same,” the President compared.
López Obrador has also criticized what he describes as the “hypocritical silence” by the rest of Latin American countries over the crisis in Peru, which began on December 7 when then-President Castillo announced the dissolution of Congress and ordered an emergency government. Castillo was arrested hours later and taken to a Lima jail. His decision prompted unanimous opposition from Latin American democracies, although his sacking and imprisonment have also drawn criticism from López Obrador and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who the Peruvian Congress declared persona non grata.
“It’s very annoying that everyone is silent,” said López Obrador, who repeatedly justified his silence on other crises in the region, such as the one in Nicaragua with Daniel Ortega, with the fact that Mexico does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, according to what was laid down in the so-called Estrada Doctrine. “So we have seen that they are very hypocritical, they yell like criers, don’t they?, when it suits them, and are silent like mummies when it doesn’t suit them; Well, the world press, the most famous newspapers in the world, the OAS in the case of America, the UN, human rights organizations, nobody talks about this great injustice, the conclusion of which is that an oligarchy in Peru, nationally but above all abroad, is plundering the Peru’s natural resources: gas, mining resources”, criticized the President. “Annoying, unworthy, it is a great injustice, one cannot remain silent and we will continue to do so,” López Obrador concluded his conference, in a direct challenge to the Peruvian government .
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