Boluarte denies that he has "all" responsibility for the deaths and asks to look at the "other side of violence"

The Government plans to dismiss the head of the National Intelligence Directorate

The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, has criticized that the government is blamed for "full responsibility" for the thirty deaths caused by the repression of protests in favor of former president Pedro Castillo and has reproached the press for not questioning "the other side of violence.

"We have made the necessary decisions to safeguard the peace, tranquility and life of 33 million people (...). Here we cannot be placing all the responsibility on the Executive because we have not said 'hey, go out and Take airports, listen, go out on the streets and burn here or burn there.' We have to look broadly," he justified.

"The press cannot come to say 'you, you, you'. And what about the other side of violence? What about those who have generated the violence? They are responsible," he said in an interview for the newspaper 'The Republic'.

In this sense, Boluarte has accused other political leaders of "inciting" the population to demonstrate and "deliberately distorting history", for which he must assume responsibilities, he said.

"Dina Boluarte did not provoke the violence", the president has defended herself, who has assured that neither she nor "nobody" could imagine the "violence" that her inauguration would cause after Castillo's arrest. "For the Executive it has not been easy to take the measures to declare a state of national emergency," she said.

Questioned about her responsibility as supreme commander of the Armed Forces, Boluarte has said that her government is giving prosecutors all "facilities" to investigate these deaths, alleging that some agents are in serious condition due to gunshot wounds. "We have faced organizations such as drug trafficking and illegal mining. They are not people who walk with a white flag," she apologized.

Boluarte has insisted that his instructions were to contain the violence that could arise in the protests "in a dissuasive manner" and with tear gas, emphasizing that he did not even give an order to use "what is allowed by law", such as rubber bullets. "That are not lethal, but they can cause an impact."

In this way, asked about the possibility of being investigated for the deaths of the protesters, the Peruvian president has made it clear that it is not something that worries her, since the Executive acted "within the constitutional and legal framework."

The Peruvian president has also stressed that her government "is not oblivious" to the pain of the families of the victims and has asked to let both the Prosecutor's Office and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) work before issuing hasty judgments on the origin of these deaths.

"We cannot be stigmatizing the work of the Armed Forces either", claimed the Peruvian president in a tense interview in which she criticized that the protests are not related to "unattended claims from social programs", but rather with "advancement of elections , closure of Congress, Constituent Assembly, resignation of Dina Boluarte and release of Pedro Castillo".

In those, she has indicated that she has no intention of continuing as president of Peru beyond her constitutional mandate and that the possibility of advancing elections to 2023 "so that the population calms down" depends on Congress. "They have the votes, not us," she has said.

Regarding the head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINI), Juan Carlos Liendo O'Connor, who described the protests as a "terrorist insurgency", Boluarte has stressed that changes will be made in the Intelligence agency and has stated that they are considering dismissing him .