Peru: Persecution and Censorship | opinion

The next day – strictly speaking, at the same moment – we met Raoul Zafaroni And I – a lawyer Pedro Castillo– with the Attorney General of the State of Bolivia, Wilfredo Chavez Serrano, Ex lawyer Evo Morales (photo), like Zavaroni, The Peruvian judiciary summons Evo Morales to testify as a defendant in the “Apology for Terrorism” case In Puno state, where a massacre took place.

Not only intimidating an indigenous peasant social leader, like Castillo, who constitutes the same discriminatory nucleus in both countries. (Evo Morales gave Castillo a painting made of coca leaves on his first visit to the country. As between two sister nations, Evo calls Pedro his “brother,” the same affection he feels for him. Lopez Obrador by the character of Castillo, who says to him in Mexico at the first summit where they meet: “I come alone”, only because I don’t have much to do with “the force”). But the “times” in which these subpoenas are issued and enforced: have the obvious form of political persecution and professional harassment of lawyers.

One has a strange sense – new to those who have not lived under dictatorship, as I have – that we are “following in our own footsteps”, as the Deutsche Welle presenter told me bluntly in Berlin a few weeks ago, Jenny Perez, who said to me before the interview on the ground: “You know they are following you step by step, right?” I didn’t understand the scope of that phrase until yesterday. At the same time that Wilfredo Chávez Serrano, who is in the country for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with Castillo or Morales, is in his technical role as a defender of the interests of the Bolivian state (which had no attorney for the treasury until Morales’ rule in Bolivia, the state had no defense, And no school for the training of lawyers!), In the intense arbitration sessions he sat to talk with Zaffaroni and me at the faculty of the State Attorney’s Authority (ECAE), after an intense day at the University of Mothers and in honor of the Armenian Genocide, a “citation” against Evo Morales was prepared in parallel (not before , not yet, but at that very moment) in Peru.

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Chronologically they were out of sync. They are “responses” to every new “movement”, just as the Peruvian state evaluates and strongly evaluates the abandonment of the inter-American system (because of its “prejudices” and “locks”) after our offer – the precautionary measure – before him, in favor of Pedro Castillo, imprisoned arbitrarily. Castillo and Evo Morales represent the same thing. They embody the same social sectors that are excluded from politics (As Pietro said before the Organization of American States a few days ago, in another defense of Castillo, peoples who have been denied “the right to exist”). This is why Evo Morales strongly supports Castillo. Which is why now they are also persecuting Ivo. Because Evo (thankfully!) is not silent.

The Peruvian embassy sent out extensive letters of complaint before every interview I had in Europe. This level of persecution and censorship – which Amnesty International has already suffered in Lima – is not compatible with democracy. And it must stop. How the persecution of indigenous peoples in Peru and Bolivia must stop. What we are experiencing in Peru is not democratic and the leaders of the region should not remain silent about it. Lives are worth more than a “step up” dollar. Lives that no longer deserve press conferences and headlines that don’t reach. There is no half measure when attacking the basic principles of life in a democracy. There are already seventy poor peasants killed in Peru, including girls and boys. They persecute Evo as they persecute Correa, Castillo, Lola, Lugo, Cristina. It’s another chapter in an overarching story that we already know. Whoever does not kneel and shut up goes to jail. oppressed. We cannot remain silent in the face of such injustice against the excluded and exiled social sectors and against the leaders of the indigenous (Ivo) and the people (Korea, Lula, Lugo, Christina, Zelaya claimed today Xiomara Castro, Castle, what is it A peasant teacher from Cajamarcawho apologized in prison for serving me water from a bowl on the floor and in a plastic cup (I don’t have anything else, sorry”) represents them and gives them a voice.