Peruvians Are Protesting Their Unelected President

AUGUST 16, 2023

Thousands have joined demonstrations against Dina Boluarte. Now, progressives in Congress are asking the Biden administration to stop supporting her far-right regime.

AÍDA CHÁVEZ



Peruvian President Dina Boluarte delivers her annual Message to the Nation on Independence Day, at the Congress in Lima on July 28, 2023. (Aldair Mejia / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

For the past few months, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in cities across Peru to demand the resignation of unelected President Dina Boluarte, who took office in December 2022 when a right-wing alliance overthrew and imprisoned the socialist President Pedro Castillo. The ongoing protests, led by Peru’s mostly Indigenous and poor majority since the day Boluarte assumed the presidency, have been brutally repressed by state security forces, leading to the deaths of at least 60 civilians. Anger over those deaths and the lack of any subsequent accountability fueled the latest wave of the uprising, which was rekindled in late July. Demonstrators are calling for new elections, the resignation of Boluarte, and even the drafting of a new Constitution.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has maintained an alliance with Peru, which receives over $40 million in security assistance from the US every year, according to the Washington Office on Latin America. From June through December, the Pentagon will have deployed over a thousand US troops with weapons and equipment to participate in joint military exercises with the Peruvian military. Just a couple weeks ago, local media reported that the Biden administration is licensing sales of riot control weapons and equipment to Peru. But despite the violent response to the mobilizations, the Biden administration is not wavering from its support of the Boluarte government. In response, Democratic lawmakers, including a few moderate voices, are pressing the administration to condemn the abuses and halt military assistance to Peru until the violence comes to an end.

“By consistently voicing support for the Peruvian government, the US not only contradicts the human rights and democratic principles it professes to uphold but also strengthens a regime that continues to brutally repress the Peruvian people,” Francesca Emanuele, a Peruvian analyst and senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Nation.

International groups, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have found that state security forces committed serious human rights violations against Peruvians during the protests. A Human Rights Watch report in April found that the killings were “most likely extrajudicial or arbitrary killings under international human rights law.” Even as the death toll reached 20 civilians back in December, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called Boluarte, telling the Peruvian leader that the US “looks forward to working closely” with her government. Not long after the call, the US went further in signaling its support. Ambassador Lisa Kenna, who spent nearly a decade in the CIA before becoming a diplomat, announced that the Biden administration would be pumping an additional $8 million into coca eradication in the Upper Huallaga Valley.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/world/peru-dina-boluarte/