Aníbal Torres' attacks on the press do not build bridges between the Executive and the media in Peru

Premier Aníbal Torres continually attacks the media. In addition to insulting and calling Cardinal Pedro Barreto “miserable” - who has been very hurt by these statements -, too said that action will have to be taken against the press.

“We have to do something, of course, also in relation to that because they are already happening. It is a press that is hurting children, it is hurting youth. It is a press that defames, that deceives, that misinforms, and that is harmful to the formation of our childhood, our youth and the formation of our own people, of our own citizens,” he said on the YouTube channel 'The Ethnopatriota'.

For Alonso Cárdenas, a political scientist at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University (UARM), the prime minister is “totally out of focus.” Although the confrontational manner served Aníbal Torres in the presidential campaign, now, in the Government, he cannot have that attitude, warned the professor.

“In the presidential campaign, Aníbal Torres had this argumentative capacity to showcase everything that happened during Fujimorism in the country. However, the Government could not have such an attitude in a context of social upheaval. It must build bridges and dialogue, but the Government is not negotiating anything. He is not acceding to any requests made by the guilds,” the political analyst told Infobae.

For his part, journalist Pedro Salinas considered that “freedom of expression and of the press in Peru is not at its best”, although it is not the time of Fujimorism, “we are in a dangerous area on the part of the Executive who has this authoritarian spirit of not giving interviews to the media” . He said that the premier's insults to Cardinal Barreto are “because he felt that his position has been questioned” and examined that we are “in a government that does not believe in freedom of expression or the role that the press plays in a democracy.”

“President Pedro Castillo, instead of giving his version in a program like Panorama, sent them a notarial letter asking for an absolutely convoluted rectification and threatening that there could be legal action. It is unusual and unacceptable for a president of the Republic to threaten a media outlet in this way; except in a dictatorship, these things don't happen and, supposedly, we live in a democracy,” added the author of “Half monks, half soldiers”.

HITLER

Aníbal Torres has mentioned - so far - three times Adolf Hitler, whom he has given as an example of good government management, despite because I was very wrong. He could have named the Incas and their huge road network as a model, but the premier insisted on the Austrian dictator and genocide.

“It has no justification whatsoever. It is weakening an extremely weak government because you open up the front of the international press that echoed these unfortunate and shameful statements by bringing up an issue that has nothing to do with the current context,” Cardenas said.

The public policy specialist stated that they had been “surprised in the world by these statements” by the president of the Council of Ministers and “opens up another front for you with the diplomatic representatives of the embassies of the European Union, Israel and Germany, which issued extremely harsh statements against these demonstrations. What is the need to continue to open fronts when you are already a weak government?”

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

During the half-year meeting of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), which was held in virtual mode between April 19 and 21, the warned that there is a wave of violence against journalists “never seen before”. In Peru, the association of information agencies in Latin America reported that “the situation of freedom of expression and the press is at its worst in the last two decades” in the government of Pedro Castillo.

“Peru is not at its best compared to the times of Fujimori - which are not the same because there was media prostitution and TV channel purchases there - but we are at a difficult time. The President of the Republic, who should be the first defender of freedom of expression, is indolent in the face of the aggressions he himself perpetrates,” said Salinas.

Cárdenas recalled that during the presidential elections a sector of the Lima press had a completely favorable position for Keiko Fujimori. However, he believes, despite the animosity that the Pedro Castillo Government may have with the media, it is not justified by “the terrible appointments, by the proximity of the president's main collaborators with corruption; and by all the setbacks that the head of state has had, mainly, because of his own mistakes”.

And he said that in a supposed work plan between the press and the Executive, another profile of premier with “political weight of its own” is needed.

IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS CRISIS?

Salinas explained that President Pedro Castillo must have the “dignified gesture” of resigning as head of state and, as his popularity does not rise in the country , he “consequently blames all his ills on journalism.”

“When the blame for all their ills lies with a single person, who is called Pedro Castillo; and to his premier Aníbal Torres who refers to Adolf Hitler as a successful management,” he said.

Cárdenas analyzed that if the president makes a change of Cabinet, it would be the fifth in nine months of government, that is, 30 ministers at that time, “something unprecedented in Latin America.”

Not only that. According to the political scientist, Castillo is facing a tougher path in the coming months: “The biggest problem of the government is the overexpectation that was generated and it does not have the capacity to fulfill, basically in the south, where the biggest protests are taking place; and in a couple of months it will be food security. Peru does not produce fertilizers; that is a complicated issue that the government is not handling; and the president and his team of advisors are not aware of it. For that, you need people with a knowledge profile and management capacity in key positions. That was the heel of Achilles: the terrible ability to convene and place people in key public office.”

“We are not at our best, but, despite this, we must continue doing journalism,” Pedro Salinas concluded, reflecting.

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