International

Cristina Fernández affirms that persecution against her is for seeking social justice

Photo: @CFKArgentina

22 mars |

The Vice President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, affirmed on Tuesday that the attacks and persecutions against her by the “judicial party” are due to the fact that progressive sectors seek equality in societies and fight for social justice.

“They do not persecute us because we are populists, or from the left, from the right, or from below or from above,” said the Argentine leader during her participation in the meeting called Popular Will and Democracy – From the Military Party to the Judicial Party, organized by the Puebla Group in Buenos Aires.

“They persecute us because we equalize societies, for social justice, for the right of workers to actively participate in the gross product of what they produce,” added Fernandez de Kirchner, who was president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and who has a court ruling that prohibits her from aspiring to a new electoral candidacy.

She stated that “they will never forgive us for the reconstruction of the economy and what we were able to build in terms of human rights (…) They will never forgive us”.

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He maintained that “what the military party was to the popular governments of the 20th century, the lawfare (judicial persecution) is to the national, popular and democratic governments. Exactly the same”.

In this sense, the official denounced that lawfare “cannot be explained without the media. The sentence is written in the media and then a prosecutor or a judge subscribes the accusation or subscribes the sentence”.

Fernandez de Kircher said that, even if she runs the risk of being imprisoned, her main mission is to rebuild a democratic state in the country under the slogan of the Constitution.

“I am not interested in whether we are going to be condemned or if I am going to be disqualified, or if I am going to be imprisoned, I do not care, what matters to me fundamentally is that we return to rebuild a democratic and constitutional State, in which the guarantees established in the Constitution are not a painted cardboard”, she said.

The meeting was attended as members of the Puebla Group by former governors Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Ernesto Samper (Colombia), José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spain) and José Mujica (Uruguay), who expressed their support to the Argentine Vice-President.

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International

Peruvian presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra dies in campaign road accident

Presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra, representing the Partido de los Trabajadores y Emprendedores (PTE) in Peru, died in a traffic accident while traveling to a campaign event, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Becerra, who also served as president of the centrist political party, ranked among the lowest in opinion polls in a crowded field of more than 30 candidates competing in the presidential election scheduled for April 12.

Recent surveys place Rafael López Aliaga at the top of voter preferences.

The accident occurred near the town of Ayacucho, in southern Peru, when the vehicle carrying the candidate overturned for reasons that remain under investigation.

“The candidate Becerra has died,” Balvin Huamani, mayor of the district of Pilpichaca, told RPP radio.

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According to Huamani, he personally transported the 61-year-old candidate to a local health center, where doctors confirmed his death.

The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE) expressed condolences over Becerra’s passing and wished a speedy recovery to the three people who were traveling with him and were injured in the crash.

International

Noboa intensifies anti-cartel crackdown as violence persists in Ecuador

A close ally of Washington, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a hardline security strategy against cocaine cartels for more than two years, yet homicide, disappearance and extortion rates remain high across the country.

Between Sunday night and the morning of March 31, Ecuador’s armed forces will launch a “very strong offensive” with “advisory support” from the United States, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced Tuesday.

The government has kept details of the operation confidential and has not confirmed whether U.S. troops will be deployed on Ecuadorian soil, as has occurred at times during Noboa’s administration.

As part of the security measures, residents in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro will be subject to a nightly curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time for the next two weeks.

“We are in a war,” Reimberg said, urging citizens to remain indoors. “Do not take risks. Stay home and allow the security forces and our allies to do the work that must be done.”

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Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it has become a major departure point for drugs heading to the United States. Meanwhile, the violence associated with trafficking has increasingly affected the local population.

Bordering the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being considered a relatively peaceful country to recording one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America—52 killings per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the **Observatory of Organized Crime.

International

Peruvian presidential candidate proposes death penalty amid crime surge

Peru is facing an unprecedented surge in crime ahead of its presidential election scheduled for April 12, with violence fueled by extortion networks and a wave of contract killings linked to organized crime.

Police data show that 2,200 homicides tied to organized crime were recorded in 2025, while extortion complaints increased by 19%, underscoring the growing security crisis in the South American nation.

Amid this backdrop, presidential candidate Álvarez has proposed reinstating the death penalty if elected, arguing that extreme measures are needed to curb the violence.

To implement the proposal, Álvarez said Peru would withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights—also known as the Pact of San José—which the country signed in 1978. The agreement prevents member states that have abolished capital punishment from reinstating it.

Currently, Peruvian law only allows the death penalty in cases of treason during wartime.

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“We have to leave the Pact of San José and apply the death penalty in Peru because those miserable criminals don’t deserve to live,” Álvarez told AFP during a campaign stop at a market in Callao, the port city neighboring Lima.

“An iron fist against those criminals,” he added, proposing to declare hitmen as military targets.

During the campaign event, Álvarez walked through stalls selling vegetables, groceries, and fish, greeting vendors while musicians played cumbia music nearby.

The 62-year-old candidate, who spent more than four decades working in television as a comedian, is a newcomer to politics and is running for president under the País para Todos party.

Polls place him fifth in voter preference with nearly 4% support in a fragmented race featuring 36 candidates.