International
EU concerned about Peru protesters ‘killed’, urges calm
| By AFP |
The European Union added its voice Monday to calls for calm after nearly two weeks of protests prompted by the ouster of leftist ex-president Pedro Castillo.
Security officials say 21 people have died in clashes since Castillo was abruptly removed from power and arrested early this month after seeking to dissolve Congress to rule by decree.
His impeachment and detention drew criticism from leftist Latin American allies including Mexico, as well as from thousands of supporters who took to the streets to demand his release.
A subsequent security clampdown, including the deployment of armed soldiers during a state of emergency declared under Castillo’s successor Dina Boluarte, has killed several protesters.
“The EU condemns any use of violence and any excessive use of force,” the bloc said in a statement Monday.
It expressed concern about “reports that more than two dozen civilians have been killed so far, some of them by firearms, and many more injured during recent protests.”
The EU called for a “spirit of dialogue and cooperation to stop violence.”
In addition to the deaths, the repression of demonstrations has also left 646 people injured, including 290 policemen, according to the office of Peru’s human rights ombudsman.
On Sunday, the US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken to Boluarte, urging the new president to pursue reforms and “focus on reconciliation.”
Castillo, a former rural school teacher and union leader, unexpectedly took power from Peru’s traditional political elite in elections last year.
He immediately came under fire, surviving two early impeachment bids, and soon also found himself in the cross-hairs of prosecutors looking into numerous graft claims.
He is the subject of six separate criminal investigations.
Castillo’s short term was plagued by instability, with three prime ministers and seven interior ministers coming and going in just over a year.
Opinion polls revealed massive public disapproval of Castillo’s management of the country, but thousands nevertheless spilled onto the streets when he was arrested.
‘Criminal organization’
By Monday, the protests appeared to be waning, with smaller groups gathered calmly in several parts of the country, waving signs denouncing Boluarte as a “killer” and demanding her resignation.
They also want elections scheduled for 2026 to be brought forward to next year — a measure that lawmakers will consider this week.
Demonstrations have shaken the country since Castillo’s impeachment on December 7, with roadblocks and airport disruptions and thousands of tourists left stranded.
Operations at the airport of Arequipa, Peru’s second busiest, resumed Monday after a week of closure due to protesters obstructing the runway with stones, sticks and burning tires.
Neighbor Chile announced, meanwhile, that a chartered plane would evacuate stranded visitors to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu to Lima.
Castillo is being held in pre-trial detention on charges of rebellion and conspiracy.
Boluarte, who was Castillo’s vice president and took over after he was impeached, said Sunday that Mexico had offered asylum to Castillo’s graft-accused family.
Speaking on the Panorama TV program, she did not specify whether the family members — Castillo’s wife, two children and sister-in-law — have left the country.
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and fellow leftist leaders of Bolivia, Argentina and Colombia have all expressed support for Castillo.
Prosecutors have accused Castillo’s wife, Lilia Paredes, of criminal conspiracy and money laundering as part of an alleged graft network headed by her husband.
The “criminal organization” Castillo stands accused of running is alleged to have handed out public contracts in exchange for kickbacks.
Paredes’s sister Yenifer is also accused in the alleged plot.
The country is no stranger to instability: it had three different presidents in five days in 2020, and now six presidents since 2016.
Six of Peru’s last seven presidents were investigated or prosecuted after their terms came to an end.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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