Serious human rights violations during protests against Dina Boluarte in Peru: IACHR

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) determined that the Peruvian Police and Armed Forces resorted to a “disproportionate, indiscriminate and lethal use” of force against protesters who have demanded the resignation of President Dina Boluarte since December.

Members of the IACHR visited the country in December 2022 and January of this year. Boluarte assumed power after a failed self-coup by former president Pedro Castillo in early December.

The 113-page document states that the IACHR delegation reached its conclusion after receiving extensive information during hearings in Lima, Ica, Arequipa, and Cusco.

Then he was able to confirm it also with the high number of deaths and injuries with injuries to the upper part of the body from firearm impacts and the discovery of a high number of victims who were not even participating in the protests.

In the report, the IACHR mentions 57 citizens who lost their lives and another 912 people ended up with some kind of injury.

“The serious human rights violations reported in this report must be diligently investigated by specialized human rights prosecutors,” the document says. “In addition, they must be judged by independent, competent and impartial judges within a reasonable time and with observance of the guarantees of due process.”

He added that “if found responsible, the perpetrators should be subject to the corresponding criminal sanctions,” he mentions.

Ayacucho and Puno

The inter-American entity also made a particular analysis of the cases in Ayacucho and Puno.

In Ayacucho, 10 deaths were registered as a result of the protests. The report indicates that “serious human rights violations have been recorded that must be investigated with due diligence and with an ethnic-racial focus. Being perpetrated by State agents, the deaths could constitute extrajudicial executions.”

In addition, “as they are multiple deprivations of the right to life, given the circumstances of manner, time, and place, they could be classified as a massacre.”

On the other hand, in the city of Juliaca (Puno) there were also 17 deaths in the marches against Boluarte.

“The IACHR observes that in that city there have been situations of excessive and indiscriminate use of force by State agents, which have resulted in serious human rights violations against both protest participants and third parties. ”, they maintain.

stigmatization

The IACHR was also able to verify that there is a deterioration in the national debate in Peru because there is a very strong narrative against indigenous people and peasants, who are described as “terrorists”, “terrucos”, “senderistas”, “cholos” or “indians”. ”, among other expressions.

“These messages are not innocuous, on the contrary, they contribute to the creation of an environment of permissiveness and tolerance towards discrimination, stigmatization and institutional violence against this population”, he expands regarding this conclusion.

Dialogue and recommendations

In its report, the IACHR emphasizes that Peru must overcome the serious political crisis that it has suffered since 2016 through effective dialogue and agreements within the framework of the rule of law. In addition, measures should be adopted to strengthen the country’s democratic institutions.

The recommendations include that the relatives of the victims of the protests should be redressed with a thorough and rapid investigation to identify those responsible for the deaths.

Along these lines, it is highlighted that they are asking for more resources for the Public Ministry so that it can carry out its work in the best way by creating more specialized human rights prosecutors that are throughout the country.

The IACHR recommends systematizing through a comprehensive record of the data on people who died, injured, detained, and victims of gender violence in the context of social protests.

“The registry must be specific and take into account data disaggregated by ethnic-racial origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression,” they explain.

Finally, the organization emphasizes that the figures of constitutional accusation, presidential vacancy due to permanent moral incapacity and the dissolution of Parliament must be defined.

These conclusions will be presented this Wednesday from 9:00 in the morning in a virtual conference from Washington, local time.

Boluarte seeks to clean up his image

Before the publication of the IACHR report, it was learned that the government of Dina Boluarte is disbursing $110,000 to the consulting firm Patriot Strategies LLC from April 10 to June 9, according to Joshua Goodman, a journalist for the AP agency.

This agreement would be a sort of renewal of the Executive Branch with the US firm because it had previously disbursed $55,000 to launch a communications campaign to clean up Boluarte’s image before the international community.

A week ago, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) also published its report in which it denounced that the deaths that occurred during the protests against the Executive “constitute extrajudicial or arbitrary executions under international human rights law, for which the State is responsible.”

“There are strong reasons to believe that President Boluarte, Prime Minister [Alberto] Otárola and other senior officials did not take effective measures to stop the deaths, despite being aware of the responsibility of the security forces in them,” they sentenced.

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