Castillo invites investors to go to Peru: “We are not communists”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, invited this Monday (20) investors and companies to bet on his country and rejected the idea that his government intends to scare away the entry of capital: “We are not communists, we have not come to expropriate anyone, we have not come to scare away investments,” he said.

Castillo spoke at a virtual protocol session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) convened on the occasion of the Peruvian President’s first visit.

Wearing his traditional straw hat and introducing himself as a teacher by profession, Castillo complained that those who seek change, “in tune with the people, in tune with the men from below,” are often stigmatized.

He indicated that his government invites big investors and businessmen to come to Peru, a country he described as “eminently mining” and with “enough wealth”, which he claimed should reach “even the most common man”.

However, he denounced that, out of every ten children in his country, four are at the threshold of anemia and poverty, and warned that after the pandemic, now it is six children out of every ten who face “this crude reality”.

In this context, Castillo, who assumed the Presidency of his country last July 28, indicated that his Government has proposed to end inequalities and the “great scourge” of corruption.

“In Peru, we have corrupt people of every caliber. Corruption is a big problem in my country, and we even have corrupt people to export,” he said.

Addressing the OAS, he pointed out that it should open some “enormous spaces” to become “a truly equitable, social space, where human rights are guaranteed” and where there is talk of genuine democracy and equal opportunities without discrimination.

In this sense, he proposed that the OAS “hold decentralized meetings” and leave “the four walls” to visit the people.

He also stressed that the pandemic should teach us that this is the moment “for the greatest unity of the peoples”. Castillo said he had been battling for 21 days with covid-19, called to think of the people, and warned that the health problem had not arrived with the pandemic but was historical.

“Before the pandemic, there were no collapsed hospitals, before the pandemic, no sick people were lining up to get a pill, to have the right to this constitutional right,” said the president.

He appealed to “see the reality of the peoples” and closed his speech with a “long live the OAS, long live America.”