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The Peruvian Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, lashed out on March 8 the Latin American governments that question the legitimacy of President Dina Boluarte, after receiving the highest decoration that the country awards to personalities of society.
“As is known, some governments in the region, moved by ideologies or political interests, have intervened improperly in Peruvian affairs, dragging down the neighbors, questioning the legitimacy of their government,” Vargas Llosa said during a ceremony at the Palacio de Government in Lima.
“Those rulers must be reminded that in Peru, where democracy prevails, (…) we firmly reject their interference that violates international standards and the most basic principles of good neighborliness,” he added in a tacit allusion to the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro.
López and Petro have become the most conspicuous critics of Boluarte, whose democratic legitimacy they question as a result of the impeachment by Congress of leftist president Pedro Castillo on December 7, 2022 after his failed coup.
The rise to power of Boluarte, who was Castillo’s vice president, triggered a wave of protests that have left more than 50 dead and some 600 injured.
Supporters of the former president demand the resignation of the government, the closure of Congress and the advancement of the elections to 2023.
“It is an injustice to maintain, as some interested groups do, that in Peru there has been a rupture of the constitutional order and democracy,” said the author of “Conversation in the Cathedral,” among other novels.
Vargas Llosa, who will turn 87 on March 28, did not hold anything back and included the press in his criticism, accusing it of distorting reality by “presenting Peru as a caricature of democracy, trying to damage the image of our country.”
The ceremony began with a speech by President Boluarte in which she highlighted that he was awarded the Order of the Sun in the degree of Grand Collar, “the highest hierarchy granted by the republic, as a symbol of Peru’s recognition and gratitude and as an unequivocal testimony of the admiration, pride and affection of the Peruvians”.
The Peruvian president had congratulated him almost a month ago, after his incorporation into the French Academy on February 9, which made him the first author in a non-French language to access that institution founded in 1635.
Vargas Llosa looked excited and tired, accompanied by his three children and his ex-wife Patricia Llosa.
A 53-year-old rural teacher and union leader, Castillo is serving pretrial detention in the Barbadillo prison, a mini-prison for ex-presidents, inside the headquarters of the Special Operations Directorate of the Police, east of Lima.
