The former Minister of Defense of Peru, Gustavo Bobbio, has assured that none of the members of the ministerial Cabinet knew the intentions of the former president of the country Pedro Castillo to dissolve Parliament and establish an emergency government.
Bobbio, Castillo’s last appointment and who barely held the Defense portfolio for four days, has distanced himself from the president’s latest decisions, which finally led to his dismissal and arrest.
“If he had prepared it with me, in the first place he would have had to agree and without a doubt he would not have done something so clumsy,” Bobbio told the Peruvian radio station RPP, where he acknowledged that the ministers were “astonished” seeing the derives from the agent
Thus, the former minister has stressed that during his short tenure as head of Defense, he gave clear instructions to the military high command to remain at all times “within absolute governability and respect for the Constitution.”
In this sense, he has confirmed that, after Castillo’s decree, he called on the Army Commander General to close the barracks in order to avoid possible confrontations or incidents with the civilian population.
Finally, the former minister has recognized that Castillo’s statement was “total clumsiness”, although he has tried to understand Castillo’s way of acting as that of “someone fed up with having his family annoyed.” “It was a ‘I don’t give anymore’ and expression what he wanted,” he said.
President Castillo launched a speech to the nation on Wednesday in which he decreed the dissolution of Parliament and the implementation of an emergency government. That coup attempt was not supported and finally the president ended up dismissed by Congress and arrested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
