Patricia Correa and the then Culture Minister Jair Perez resigned for not agreeing with both military and police repression. Correa declared to the weekly “Hildebrandt en sus Trece” that President Boluarte, after denying to both of them having knowledge that the 10 deaths were civilians, endorsed a repression on protests.

The former minister said they spoke on December 15 with the president and showed her evidence spread on the Internet and footage confirming denunciations of repressions and abuses, to which Boluarte answered that she did not have such an information.

According to the evidence, Boluarte replied she had reports according to which “population had ambushed the police and that is why the military had entered into action”, but she did not make any call or check what the two ministers had said, nor did she give the order to cease fire.

The interviewee recalled that she also “told us that the she would take action next day, that she was going to make changes and make decisions”, which he did not do.

She also said that she spoke with the president again, expressed her willingness to resign if repression continued and asked for explanations about what was happening.

“I told her that she should urgently call for a Council of Ministers meeting, ask for forgiveness in a message to the nation and demand the resignation of the Prime Minister and the Ministers of Interior and Defense (current Prime Minister, Alberto Otárola),” as politically responsible for the deaths.

Correa also said that she and Perez asked Boluarte, out of respect to the people of Ayacucho, to refrain from attending the new Army officers graduation next day, but she did and in her speech she gave unconditional support to the military operations.

In view of the non-compliance, Perez and I met with Boluarte again, and “she told us the country required a strong government, firm, with an iron fist, to which I replied that civilians had just died at the hands of the military, and that the only thing that made a government strong was a democracy without violence”.

After that last meeting, Correa and Perez resigned from their posts, arguing their rejection of the repression.

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