Peru bans entry of Evo Morales to undermine ‘national security’

Peru’s government said on Monday that it had banned the former president from entering the country Evo Morales and eight other Bolivian nationals, whom he accuses of having executed “proselytizing activity of a political nature” which have affected the “national security” of the country.

“In recent months, foreign citizens of Bolivian nationality who have entered the country to carry out activities of a political nature of proselytism have been identified, which constitutes a clear violation of our immigration legislation, national security and the internal order of Peru”, he said. remarked the Ministry of the Interior (Mininter) in a statement.

The official note underlined that Peru “is a sovereign and democratic country, whose law on immigration establishes that all foreign citizens in the national territory have the duty to conduct themselves in accordance with the legal system, with particular regard to national security and internal order”.

“Consequently, on 6 January of this year, the National Superintendence for Migrations, in strict compliance with its powers (…) ordered the registration of the impediment to entry into the countrythrough all immigration checkpointsof nine citizens of Bolivian nationality, including Mr. Juan Evo Morales Ayma,” he explained.

And he reiterated “to his citizens and to the international community the deepest respect for human rights, as well as for the historical ties” with the other South American countries, with which he assured that he was forging “important alliances aimed at achieving development, peace society, the well-being and security of our societies”.

Morales critique

The Peruvian authorities’ decision became known after President Dina Boluarte announced last week that she was analyzing, together with the immigration authority, “the situation of Morales’ entry” into her country, because should not “intervene in internal affairs.”

“In Peru we have the right to weave our history and that no one, people outside the national territory, they have to come and to want to intervene in the weaving of our history”, he underlined.

In November 2021, the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee Morales declared persona non grata “For his negative political activism in Peru and his obvious interference and meddling in the government agenda” of then President Pedro Castillo (2021-2022).

Morales was also denounced Thursday before the Peruvian prosecutor’s office by the ultraconservative deputy Jorge Montoya, for the alleged commission of crimes against national security and treason, in the modality of “attack on national integrity”.

Morales’ position

Evo Morales (2006-2019) maintained an active presence in Peruespecially in the southern regions of the country, during the Castillo government with the aim of promoting the integration of regions such as Puno to the Runasur project, the international platform of social and indigenous movements that it promotes.

The former governor has been very active on social media with views on the crisis in Peru and messages in defense of Pedro Castillo since he was ousted by Congress after attempting a self-coup on December 7.

The protests in Peru, which are gone 28 deadwhich began last December after Boluarte assumed the presidency after Castillo was ousted for trying to shut down the legislature, intervene in the judiciary and rule by decree.

On Thursday, after learning of the current Peruvian government’s criticism of him, the former Bolivian president said on Twitter that “turn the other cheek” before the “political attacks by the Peruvian right” and called for “the massacres to stop” in that country.

On Saturday he defended his runasur project and assured that “the only separatism in Peru is caused by racism, exclusion and discrimination of the power groups of Lima against their own people”.

The Runasur project is a project for the integration of Latin American social movements, following the failure of Unasur, a progressive project promoted in 2008 by the late Hugo Chávez and supported by other regional leaders such as the Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, also the deceased former Argentine president, Néstor Kirchner, and the then rulers of Ecuador, Rafael Correa and Evo Morales.

EFE extension

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