Days after Peru’s police force was denounced by Amnesty International, American troops will be heading to Peru this week on a training mission.
Last week, Amnesty International claimed Peruvian police committed “grave human rights violations and crimes under international law” while battling protests that followed the fall of former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo.
The report said that “the evidence suggests that superiors in the chain of command at the highest level may have ordered the operations, allowed or encouraged the serious human rights violations that occurred, or knowing about them, did nothing to prevent them.”
Peru’s Attorney General’s Office should investigate all those, up to the highest level, who ordered or tolerated the illegitimate use of lethal force by security forces that resulted in 49 deaths during the protests from December to February. https://t.co/3pujU9Z7uq
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) May 25, 2023
On the same day the report was issued, Peru’s legislature passed a resolution allowing U.S. troops into the country from June 1 through Dec. 31, according to a translation of a Spanish-language report in lalupa.pe.
The site said American troops will provide “support and assistance in Special Operations to the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and the Peruvian National Police.”
Although the site did not report how many American soldiers are going to Peru, a Spanish language report, on SwissInfo.ch cited Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as saying 700 American soldiers are being sent.
EVO MORALES: “The authorization of the Peruvian Congress for the entry and stay of US troops for 7 months, ratifies that Peru is governed from Washington, under the tutelage of the Southern Command. The Peruvian people are subjected to powerful foreign interests mediated by… pic.twitter.com/kYX1pYc7SU
— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) May 21, 2023
Should the United States be sending troops to Peru?
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“Seven hundred U.S. soldiers to train the Peruvian armed forces and the Peruvian police,” he said, according to a translation of the site.
“I do not blame only those who allow this, but I call the attention of the United States government because that is maintaining an interventionist policy, which does not help to seek the brotherhood between the peoples of the American continent,” he said.
Lopez Obrador is currently locked in a feud with Peruvian President Dina Boluarte who on Friday called him “very ignorant,” according to Reuters.
On Thursday, the same day Peru’s legislature approved bringing U.S. troops into the country, it also approved a resolution saying Lopez Obrador was not welcome in Peru.
Why isn’t US media covering the coup in Peru? Biden installed a CIA veteran as ambassador and is now sending US troops to the nation. Coup, CIA, US troops?!? This is a huge story and yet nada in the MSM. h/t @zerohedge https://t.co/UJtte5bn5h pic.twitter.com/srmB5WmC9M
— @amuse (@amuse) May 27, 2023
Lopez Obrador has said the removal of Castillo was unconstitutional.
“So long as there isn’t democratic normalcy in Peru, we don’t want economic or trade relations with them,” he said.
Uh… why do the Mexican public know more about the deployment of 700 US troops to Peru than we do?! https://t.co/LT3CAivpfG
— MJ (@futuredci) May 27, 2023
Boluarte called the comment, “Very ignorant given the intelligence of the Mexican people.”
In December, Boluarte’s government sent Mexico’s ambassador to Peru packing after Lopez Obrador criticized Castillo’s removal. Peru then recalled its ambassador to Mexico.
