It will go down in history that the first Peruvian to deliver a message to the nation on July 28, Independence Day, spoke to the country for three hours and eight minutes. There were seventy-two pages, divided into five sections, to cover the unfathomable: the Peruvian reality. President Dina Boluarte apologized to the relatives of the victims who died in her first months of government during the mobilizations and called for “a reconciliation pact”, although she did not assume responsibility. At the same time, she petitioned Congress for legislative powers to toughen her security policy against crime.
While the president addressed the country, with a tone of voice that sought to convey calm, a few blocks away, at the intersection of Abancay and Nicolás de Piérola avenues, in the Historic Center of Lima, around a thousand protesters, mainly from the regions , were repressed by a large police deployment whose mission was to prevent at all costs that the mobilization reached the doors of Congress to express their discontent. And they did it with tear gas and pellets. A group of protesters did the same with sticks. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, six were injured as a result of the day: four civilians -three are journalists- and two policemen.
For several analysts, Boluarte’s speech lacked the most important thing: a mea culpa “I apologize, on behalf of the State, to the relatives of all the deceased, civilians, police and military and also to the wounded, and I maintain my commitment, together with the officials and authorities, to fully accept and cooperate with the work that, according to law, the Public Ministry is carrying out. There will be no impunity for anyone in this case, ”he maintained. Those who verified the lawyer’s speech found that the two words she used the most were “thousand” and “millions” and the one she uttered only once was “sorry.” Indeed, it was a message full of figures, both to demonstrate progress, raise promises, and to highlight the economic losses due to the social upheaval. “The direct economic damage of the acts of violence has been estimated by the Ombudsman’s Office at approximately 5,500 million soles (about 1,500 million dollars), a figure made up of losses of 2,500 million soles (700 million dollars) in the production and 3,000 million soles (837 million dollars) in damage to infrastructure,” he said.
In the congressional chamber, where President Dina Boluarte read without interruption, almost without drinking water, there were those who did not resist, such as Congressman Elvis Vergara, who was caught playing Angry Birds on his cell phone. There were a couple of opposition parliamentarians who turned their backs on her and some others who greeted her with signs that said “Stop the repression.” But they were not the majority. In general, the Chamber applauded the successor to Pedro Castillo for 188 minutes.
One of the most contradictory passages in her message was when she said she had inherited a country “in a serious material, moral, and political crisis,” blaming former President Pedro Castillo for responsibility and forgetting that she was the vice president of that government and that, moreover, she held the position of Minister of Development and Social Inclusion of the rural teacher, who on December 7 was the protagonist of a failed self-coup attempt. “We Peruvians were getting to know the dimension, the modus operandi and those involved in the criminal organization that, even before coming to power, had been organized by former President Pedro Castillo, with his closest family environment, part of his Council of Ministers, other authorities and a group of bad businessmen and businesswomen eager to obtain, in a spurious and illegal way, works contracts with the State”, he said.
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A fragment of his speech was dedicated to the request for legislative powers. Although it is a prerogative that the presidents of the Republic usually raise before Congress, what is relevant is that most of the measures that Boluarte intends to promote focus on citizen security in the context of the protests. Of the 50 initiatives, 33 are “directly aimed at reducing the threat of crime as much as possible.” “To face the serious challenge of crime, I present a project for the delegation of legislative powers to the Executive Power, for a period of 120 days, in order to approve the measures that Peru needs today to face, with greater harshness and efficiency, crime. delinquency and criminality”.
In this sense, he has hinted that immigrants, mostly of Venezuelan nationality, are the main causes of the increase in crime in Peru. “The delinquents and criminals have to be in their rightful place. We don’t want to see more “damn Cris” in the streets, stealing, kidnapping small businessmen, killing without mercy, acting with total impunity,” he said, referring to a thug who killed a municipal night watchman a few months ago. The Head of State has promised to “incorporate, in the Penal Code, as a restrictive penalty, the figure of expulsion, in cases of flagrante delicto” for foreign citizens.
Boluarte assured, in any case, that his government will abide by the instructions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in relation to the mobilizations. “I extend my hand and propose to sign a reconciliation pact, a pact for life, for peace, for justice, for equality.” Very early in the morning, at Tedeum Mass on July 28, Monsignor Carlos Castillo, Archbishop of Lima, said in front of Boluarte: “It seems that they did not realize that our people suffer (…) Peru today still does not see the light. Therefore, from my mission it is up to me to do, with all due respect, to address the highest authorities of the country to face our mistakes. There are deaths that await justice and reparation”. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, this Friday there were demonstrations in 18 provinces and fourteen roadblocks. This Saturday various groups have announced that they will march during the Military Parade, an act that closes the celebrations for National Holidays.
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