Guido Croxatto, the lawyer for former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo, has made a lightning visit to Mexico, but with enough time to meet with the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard and endorse the support of the Mexican government for the cause of his client, deposed on December 7 after being accused of leading a coup.
"López Obrador's support is total," says the Argentine litigator.
"He supported him from the first moment and that did not end with the dismissal, and I believe that those are the commitments that are worth it, those that do not give up," says Croxatto, while he takes a breather in a restaurant in the center of the capital. .
Less than two weeks ago, he had another meeting with the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who has also been vocal in his support for Castillo, in Bogotá.
Croxatto arrived in the morning from Argentina at Mexico City International Airport and was received by Pablo Monroy, the Mexican ambassador who two weeks after Castillo's arrest was declared persona non grata and forced to leave the Andean country.
He put on a navy blue suit and tie and first met with Ebrard at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs around ten in the morning.
The lawyer gave the same book to the chancellor and the president,
Historia de la nación latinoamericana
by the Argentine historian Jorge Abelardo Ramos, appointed ambassador to Mexico in 1989. López Obrador was also given
El Sexto
by the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, a novel that recounts the author's time in a Peruvian jail during the dictatorship of Óscar R. Benavidez.
“I gave them these books because they are fighting for the great Homeland and because Mexico is recovering its foreign policy imprint,” he comments.
“I came here because López Obrador is a president who speaks clearly, who does not save words, who is not afraid to say what he thinks and that is very important in politics,” says Croxatto.
“Dina Boluarte complains that Latin American leaders interfere in Peru's internal affairs, but political leaders are obliged not to remain silent in the face of human rights violations,” she says.
After Castillo's dismissal, diplomatic friction between the two countries surfaced.
Peru withdrew its ambassador to Mexico a little over a month ago.
After Colombia, the trip to Mexico is the second stop on a diplomatic tour to rally support for Castillo.
Croxatto with López Obrador, this Monday at the National Palace (Mexico City). Presidency of Mexico (EFE / Presidency of Mexico)
Upon his arrival at the National Palace, he spoke with Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, the spokesman for the Presidency, about a painting by José María Morelos, one of the figures of the Independence movement in Mexico, which is in one of the corners of López Obrador's office. .
At 11.30 he started the meeting with the president.
“We talk a lot about legal and technical issues.
Like Petro, the president of Mexico was very interested in learning about the procedural aspects of Castillo's arrest, about the injustice of his dismissal, ”he comments.
"The word that was repeated the most was justice, López Obrador believes that this is a just cause and that is what we talked about," he adds.
― Why were you so interested in procedural issues?
― Because he is the one who can decide how this is going to be resolved in the future.
If Castillo is badly removed, he is still the president of Peru and he must be reinstated and, in any case, carry out a process in accordance with the law.
And that is going to open up a novel political situation in Peru.
"López Obrador is very clear about which are the political arguments and which are the legal ones."
Croxatto says that while he was speaking, the Mexican president was jotting down ideas and giving guidelines to refine the strategy in favor of Castillo.
"We divided the task, I had the legal part and he was very lucid in the political part," he says.
"He proposes actions and wants those actions to have the support of the entire international community at the highest possible level," he adds.
The lawyer advances that he plans several actions abroad for the defense strategy.
For example, he is about to present a precautionary measure before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights because "his access to his foreign lawyers is systematically violated."
He also talks about visiting international forums and the United Nations, if necessary, or establishing an international mission to document possible abuses of the political crisis, "with leaders like [José Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero, for example" and organizations like Amnesty International.
"Having the support of López Obrador at the international level is extremely important," he sums up.
The letter that Castillo sent to López Obrador.
This month, the Peruvian justice system ordered precautionary measures against Castillo: 36 months in prison for leading a criminal organization and 18 months behind bars for the crime of rebellion.
The former president was deposed three months ago after trying to dissolve Congress and declare an emergency government, in what his critics describe as a "self-coup."
López Obrador also wanted to know how Castillo was doing in jail.
"He is strong, but he receives some hostile treatment," says Croxatto.
The Mexican president was also interested in Castillo's wife and children, asylum seekers in Mexico since the end of last year.
The lawyer spoke about himself with the president, told him that his son had written him a letter and that his parents identified more with the Argentine right.
"For me it is an incredible honor to write this letter to you and I hope you like my father," he reads in the letter from 11-year-old Constantino.
Later he gave him Castillo's manuscript, in which he thanks him from prison for the support he has received.
“Our job was for that letter to reach the hands it had to reach,” he says.
Croxatto admits that he did not know that López Obrador was going to make it public:
"It was a letter to the president and the decision to release it is his."
There was no written response, according to the lawyer.
Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, meeting with Croxatto, on March 16 in Bogotá. Courtesy (Colombian Presidency)
Croxatto says that López Obrador empathizes with Castillo's cause because he sees parallels in his political career.
It was another of the topics that they discussed in the conversation of about an hour.
The Mexican president has the battle for lawlessness fresh in his memory, in a memory coded as an attempt by his rivals to want to get him out of the 2006 presidential race "the bad way."
And also of the sit-in that he led in Reforma after accusing fraud in that vote, his first attempt to become president.
He equates it, for example, with the peasant rounds carried out by Peruvian peasants after right-wing Keiko Fujimori's attempts to challenge the presidential election won by Castillo.
"I think that's why he's fond of her."
"What do you need?
What would it help you if we did?” López Obrador asked him at the end of the meeting.
Croxatto says that he felt embarrassed to ask him for something, but in the end he told him that Petro had taken a picture with him and uploaded it to his Twitter.
"Well, then let's take a picture, shall we?" the president told him.
"I met with Guido Croxatto, a lawyer for Pedro Castillo, the president who was illegally removed and is unjustly in prison, suffering from the classism and racism that sadly prevails in Peru," reads the message posted by the president in his social networks.
They hugged and said goodbye.
Croxatto plans a visit with legislators this Tuesday and leaves hours later for Rome, where he will participate in a forum called by the Vatican and seek a meeting with the Pope.
It is the beginning of a tour that will take him through Germany, Italy and Belgium to meet with MEPs, politicians, academics and members of the Peruvian community in Europe.
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