Pedro Castillo
President of Peru from 2021 to 2022
José Pedro Castillo Terrones (born 19 October 1969) is a Peruvian schoolteacher, union leader and politician serving as the 63rd President of Peru since 28 July 2021 until 7 December 2022.
Quotes
edit2021
editPresidential campaign
edit- When you go out to ask for rights, they say that you are a terrorist, ... The terrorists are hunger and misery, abandonment, inequality, injustice.
- "Students’ struggles pushed Peru teacher to run for president" interview with the Associated Press (published 18 April 2021)
Inaugural address
edit- Inaugural address, Lima (28 July 2021) In his speech, President Castillo details the exploitation of Peru on its bicentennial and convokes all Peruvians to "rebuild national unity". Among the delegates and governmental representatives, King of Spain Felipe VI was present.
- For four and a half millennia, our ancestors found ways to solve their problems and to live in harmony with the rich nature that providence offered them. It was like this until the men of Castile arrived...
- This time a government of the people has come to govern with the people and for the people, to build from the bottom up.
- The three centuries in which this territory belonged to the Spanish crown allowed it to exploit the minerals that sustained the development of Europe, largely with the labor of the grandparents of many of us.
- I want you to know that the pride and pain of deep Peru runs through my veins. That I too am the son of this country founded on the sweat of my ancestors, built on the lack of opportunities of my parents and that despite that I also saw them resist. That my life was made in the cold of the early mornings in the field and that it was also these field hands that carried and rocked my children when they were little. That the history of that Peru, for so long silenced, is also my story. That I was that boy from Chota who studied at the rural school N10475 in the village of Chugur. That I am here today so that this story is no longer the exception.
- Health is a fundamental right that the State must guarantee. Physical and mental health will be the first priority in the government. We will establish a universal, unified, free, decentralized and participatory health system.
- A country that is not capable of recognizing and incorporating its ancestral knowledge and generating new ones from research ... will never be able to reach the levels of development required to adequately distribute elementary public services among its population...
- Innovation will be a priority in schools and internet connectivity a right.
- ...many of the provisions in force today only benefit large corporations so that they can take away our wealth in abundance. The state must be free to promote, to monitor and regulate according to the interest of the majority.
- All Peruvians have to know that the tasks that lie ahead are tough and that they require all of us. For this reason, we must put aside ideological differences, political positions and personal interests, in order to tear our country from the serious crises that overwhelm it.
Quotes about Castillo
edit- The US ambassador in Peru, a veteran CIA agent named Lisa Kenna, met with the country’s defense minister just one day before democratically elected left-wing President Pedro Castillo was overthrown in a coup d’etat and imprisoned without trial. Peru’s defense minister, a retired brigadier general, ordered the military to turn against Castillo.
- Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy Report, (14 December 2022)
- When Pedro Castillo won the presidency in Peru in July 2021, he was not permitted to pursue even a Scandinavian form of social democracy; the coup machinations against him began before he was inaugurated. The civilised politics that would end hunger and illiteracy are simply not permitted by the billionaire class, who spend vast amounts of money on think tanks and media to undermine any project of decency and fund the dangerous forces of the far right, who shift the blame for social chaos away from the tax-free ultra-rich and the capitalist system and onto the poor and marginalised.
- Vijay Prashad, When the People Have Nothing More to Eat, They Will Eat the Rich. Scheerpost (21 January 2023).
