“They are coming to arrest us! Close the doors!”: the dramatic hours in the Supreme Court of Peru after Pedro Castillo’s own coup

Through a televised message, the then president of Peru, Peter Castillo tried to stage a coup there are still revelations from those dramatic 76 minutes in which much of Peru believed it would enter a dictatorship.

Just two weeks ago, Castillo wanted to shut down Congress, jail the national attorney, establish a curfew and call for constitutional reform. This sparked a series of frantic calls, rumors of police persecution of the judges and an unprecedented defense operation at the Palazzo dei Tribunali.

“Close the doors!”it was the order of the Supreme Court Justice when they believed they would be arrested.

On December 1, about a hundred inhabitants of Huanta (Ayacucho), 600 kilometers south-east of Lima, set fire to a public prosecutor’s office for the release of two minors accused of killing one of their schoolmates. The violent event moved the president of the Supreme Court of Peru and the Judiciary, Elvia Barrios who went to the spot.

Six days before Castillo’s coup, Barrios went to support his judicial colleagues, but on that trip he fell ill with covid and returned to Lima.

In the Peruvian capital, political tension was already palpable. In the 16 months of Castillo’s administration, persecution by Congress was permanent. Castillo had dodged two vacancy (removal) attempts and was preparing to face a third on the afternoon of Wednesday 7 December.

Congress was about to vote on the vacancy, and at 11:56, the presidential message was televised. Dressed in the presidential sash, Castillo became a coup leader: “The following provisions have been issued: temporarily dissolve the Congress of the Republic and institute an exceptional emergency government”.

With a trembling in his hands, he announced that he would also dictate “the calling in the shortest term of elections for a new Congress with constituent faculties to draft a new Constitution in a period not exceeding 9 months”.

Beyond the rarefied climate, the message surprised the Court. “I was doing remote work that day because I was with covid, isolated. The first thing I did was go to the judiciary because this was my home and I had to defend it,” said Barrios. clarion.

“I requested it urgently take out the hard drives and put the files in safekeeping. I ordered several things to be uploaded to the cloud from the computer. and they take me out anything that could be destroyed”, reveals Elvia Barrios, the first woman in history of Peru to be president of the judiciary.

The reaction was the product of experience. In the latest coup, the government of dictator Alberto Fujimori sensitive files have been stolen.

“I called the judges and all the powers of the state. I called José Williams (Congress President) and he told me they were discussing. I called the national prosecutor and told her, ‘It’s very likely they’re coming to arrest us, but we all have to defend ourselves‘. And I summoned her to the Palace of Justice at 1.30pm”, remarked Barrios.

At 12:25 the resignations of various ministers in Castillo’s cabinet began to be announced, but tension continued. “I called the president of the Constitutional Court, explained to him the seriousness of the matter. And he told me: “I’m going with all my tribunes, that is, the whole Constitutional Court”. And so I called all the institutions: General Comptroller, Ombudsman, each of them and everyone told me they were in judiciary“.

The possible detention of judges

Barrios immediately called a press conference. At 13:01, he gave a message to the country that I would not support the self-coup. “It was then that a staffer came and said: “President, the police are coming down Abancay Avenue, they are coming to take over the Judiciary”. And I ordered: “Close the door, put the iron in it, and security in it.”

Orders followed one another, nerves grew because beyond the unity of the Judiciary, the key to Castillo’s attempted coup was knowing what would the commanders of the Armed Forces do.

As Chief Justice, Barrios had crossed paths with the military during official ceremonies. They didn’t trust them, but in some informal dialogue and faced with the latent possibility of an alteration of the constitutional order, the President of the Court maintains that he has slipped them away: “Remember that the arm of the law extends and the criminal law acts even when the years go by”.

Barrios, who knew how to be president of the anti-corruption system and intervened in Fujimori’s conviction, asked to communicate with each military he barely saw Castillo’s message with the shot.

In a tense climate, with fear of arrest, Barrios began the talks emphatically: “I am the president of the judiciary and as a state power I tell you that I will not respect this unconstitutional mandate”. And he continued: “I will defend myself and I want to know what your position is regarding this institutional self-coup”.

The response was immediate, everyone replied: “We won’t respect that, we won’t respect that.”

Without the support of the military, the doubt passed to the General Commander of the National Police of Peru, Raúl Enrique Alfaro Alvarado. “He Had worked a lot on flagrant forms and had a cordial relationship. I figured he was the only one supporting Castillo because he talked about it I was very close to him”, says Barrios.

And the tension grew: “My secretary called him, called and did not answer, did not answer, did not answer. Until he answered. I was a little stricter with him, ”she admits.

“I said to her: ‘I am president of the judiciary and as president I tell you that the arm of the law extends over time for any putschist, tell me what your institutional position is because I will not abide by any unconstitutional mandate,” declared Barrios and the answer was also a “no” to the coup.

At 13:33, Castillo left the Government Palace for the Mexican Embassy in Lima and 16 minutes later he was fired by Congress.

The same staff who told the court that the military was advancing along Abancay’s central avenue, which was false, later told him that they had arrested him. It was 2.12pm on a busy Wednesday.

When the commander of the National Police told the chief of the Supreme Court that didn’t fold After the coup, Barrios was struck by the question that many still ask in Peru today: “So, who is with this man?”

Lima, special envoy

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