The Authoritarian Behind Peru’s Massacring of Protesters
- Alex Caring-Lobel
Over 60 Peruvians have now been killed at protests following the impeachment of Pedro Castillo. President Dina Boluarte and PM Alberto “the Butcher” Otárola must be brought to justice.
Peru’s president Dina Boluarte (L) speaks next to Prime Minister Alberto Otárola during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Lima on February 10, 2023. (Ernesto Benavides / AFP via Getty Images)
One can’t speak of Dina Boluarte’s administration in Peru and the more than sixty killings committed by law enforcement at protests without mentioning current prime minister Alberto Otárola. The authoritarian character of the current government owes itself in large part to the influence of Otárola “the Butcher,” as he is now sometimes known.
The quick ascent of Otárola began on December 7, when President Pedro Castillo, faced with another impeachment attempt by Congress, tried, without success, to dissolve the institution. The armed forces and the police didn’t back him, and once the impeachment went through, Vice President Boluarte assumed the presidency that same day. Instead of distancing herself from Castillo’s opposition, the new president would cozy up to right-wing and ultraright elements in government.
Otárola was part of the first cabinet of ministers in Boluarte’s administration, assuming the role of minister of defense. As the commander of the Peruvian Armed Forces, Otárola was directly responsible for the Ayacucho massacre carried out by the military on December 15, in which ten people were shot and killed. Despite clear human rights violations, Otárola, far from raising doubt in Boluarte, grew closer to the president. The cynicism with which Otárola justified the abuses of the armed forces paired with Boluarte’s total unwillingness to recognize said abuses, casting doubt over her capacity to lead as president.
From that point on, in every press conference, Otárola could be seen at Boluarte’s side, a reflection of how their relationship began. In 2022, as vice president and minister, Boluarte retained Otárola as her lawyer to defend herself against accusations of managing a private firm while occupying public office. For Boluarte, Otárola continues to occupy this role of squire.
But perhaps more surprising is the fact that Otárola at one point participated in leftist political movements, and that he used his expertise to defend human rights — the same rights now being crushed under his command. Otárola became minister of defense in the government of former president Ollanta Humala between 2011 and 2012, and remained active in Humala’s Peruvian Nationalist Party until 2021. In 2020, on the campaign trail, Otárola supported and defended one of the banner causes of the Peruvian left: the drafting of a new constitution by a constituent assembly. Now, however, he rejects the idea of a constituent process, currently one of the principal demands of protesters.
This is another key point that explains Otárola’s close relationship with Boluarte. Both have demonstrated volatile and unpredictable political commitments that they adapt according to their own benefit and political survival. They abandoned proposals for social reforms in order to embrace the initiatives of economic elites. They distanced themselves from progressive organizations to approach political forces of the ultraright. Having undertaken this transition together, Boluarte and Otárola strengthened their bond.
It’s thus no surprise that, on December 21 of last year, Boluarte named Otárola, largely responsible for one of the largest killings in recent years, chief of her cabinet of ministers. With this appointment, she confirmed that the violent government repression of protests wouldn’t diminish but increase in intensity.
And unfortunately, that’s just what occurred. On January 9 in Juliaca, in the Puno region, the current government carried out its second-largest massacre. Twenty lost their lives after being shot with bullets and other projectiles. Among those killed figured people who weren’t even participating in the protests.
That same day, Otárola gave his first address to the nation without the presence of President Boluarte. Diverging from previous lies about the protest movement, Otárola didn’t speak of violent groups staging protests but instead blamed former president Pedro Castillo of being behind them. Without expressing guilt or remorse for those murdered that day, Otárola asserted that the government would continue to respond to protests with the same resolve. Perceiving the callousness with which Otárola assimilated the murder of innocents, observers involved in the protests and on social media began referring to Otárola as “the Butcher.”
The Rise of a Civic-Military Regime
In its repression of protests and the opposition movement, the cabinet directed by Otárola has incorporated three classic components of civic-military regimes: the fabrication of an enemy from which the population must be protected, violent physical repression during protests, and the persecution and criminalization of citizens who oppose the regime.
The government’s explanations of the origins of the protests have been inconsistent, changing on at least five occasions. Boluarte and Otárola began by speaking of groups of criminals organizing the protests in order to loot. Then Otárola accused Castillo of having organized everything. Days later, the government spoke of a resurgence of Shining Path, a terrorist group that carried out attacks in the ’80s. Officials also pointed to foreign meddling and, based on a groundless publication of a Bolivian congressman, said that groups close to former Bolivian president Evo Morales were providing arms and organizing the marches. Finally, they accused illegal mining companies of financing everything. The government could not provide evidence for any of its hypotheses.
On the other hand, the violent repression of protests has been well documented in hundreds of videos. Police have used tear gas on peaceful marchers, mercilessly beaten subjects they encounter already incapacitated, and shot unarmed people that posed no threat. Furthermore, they’ve physically attacked journalists and street medics. Though mainstream media at the beginning attempted to conceal authorities’ unjustified killings, the evidence was overwhelming. Both national and international media investigations have now demonstrated the brutal repression of protests alongside authorities’ extrajudicial killings.
In addition to the brute repression of protests, the government has also persecuted and criminalized participants. Hundreds have been arbitrarily detained without evidence, held in cells for various days. These arrests have often occurred outside of protests, always justified under the rubric of “intelligence against violent actors,” but generally without any evidence supporting allegations of violence. Some of those arrested have denounced practices of torture and even sexual violence, having been forced to strip naked for searches in situations that didn’t merit such measures. Additionally, citizens’ footage has shown police planting evidence to justify arrests and detentions of protest participants. At the height of absurdity, they’ve detained and incarcerated people alleging that they financed subversive acts for carrying sums of cash less than $500.
Out With Boluarte, Out With Otárola
The situation in Peru is grave. Even as the arguments of Boluarte’s administration to justify its actions become more and more absurd, each day Otárola “the Butcher” appears to have more power, exhibited in the increasingly authoritarian actions of the current government. The bond between Boluarte and Otarola now seems based in the fear they share that, once out of power, they’ll have to face justice for their administration’s systemic violation of human rights.
That administration finds less and less support. The mainstream press cannot diminish its crimes and abuses, and some sectors of the Right have even come to view Boluarte’s presidency as unsustainable.
The United Nations sent a letter to the government on March 2, giving the executive branch sixty days to investigate and respond to the authorities’ excessive use of force and the deaths of protesters. And the attorney general of Peru has opened a preliminary investigation of Boluarte and Otárola for the crime of genocide, for which both were questioned. For its part, the US government, through its assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, has expressed its wish for Peru to move up elections.
Meanwhile, the majority of Peruvians, as they have clearly expressed in the streets and in polls, wish for the immediate resignation of Dina Boluarte — and with it, the fall and trial of the infamous first minister Alberto “the Butcher” Otárola.