Monthly Archives: March 2023

Peru’s First Female President Has Blood on Her Hands Dina Boluarte’s term started late last year with plenty of promise—and immediately began to unravel.

Peru’s First Female President Has Blood on Her Hands Dina Boluarte’s term started late last year with plenty of promise—and immediately began to unravel.
  • March 27, 2023
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LIMA, Peru—When Dina Boluarte was abruptly sworn in on Dec. 7, 2022, the fact that she was the first female president in Peru’s 201-year history was widely noted, yet barely explored by Peruvian media. Journalists had other things on their minds: Boluarte’s inauguration took place just hours after her predecessor Pedro Castillo was impeached for attempting to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, bringing down the curtain on a 17-month administration that had tipped the Andean republic into unremitting political instability and chaos. Boluarte’s professional credentials as a lawyer felt like a qualitative…Read more …

Peru’s far right is reviving decades-old terrorism narratives to undermine protests The government has revived the practice of falsely accusing one’s political opponents of terrorism — harkening back to the days of the Shining Path guerilla insurgency

Peru’s far right is reviving decades-old terrorism narratives to undermine protests The government has revived the practice of falsely accusing one’s political opponents of terrorism — harkening back to the days of the Shining Path guerilla insurgency
  • March 21, 2023
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Peru had been rocked by anti-government protests and the state’s brutal response for seven weeks when President Dina Boluarte shared with journalists an outlandish conspiracy theory about the violence. Violent clashes in December and January, including two mass killings, left 46 people dead. But “security forces were not to blame” for these incidents, she said. Instead, it was one group of protesters that fatally attacked another, with firearms smuggled over the southeastern border from Bolivia. At a January 24 press conference, Boluarte cited only “unofficial” sources when she told reporters that most of the people…Read more …