Far-left Peruvian Congressman Pasíon Dávila is facing potential censure from the legislature after running behind conservative colleague Juan Burgos on the Congressional floor on Sunday and punching him in the back of the head, then immediately running away.
The assault occurred amid a tumultuous congressional session to discuss the fate of former President Pedro Castillo, a member of the Leninist Free Peru party who had served less than two years in office before being deposed and arrested last week. Facing a third impeachment vote likely to succeed, Castillo appeared on national television announcing that Congress had been “dissolved” before the vote and that he would now rule by decree. Such a move is commonly called an autogolpe (“autocoup”) in Peru since conservative leader Alberto Fujimori successfully pulled it off in 1992.
Peru’s national police and armed forces rapidly issued a statement assuring the public they would not follow Castillo’s orders and arrested him shortly thereafter. Castillo is currently imprisoned in the same facility as Alberto Fujimori.
Former vice president Dina Boluarte became the nation’s president later on Wednesday, the sixth president of the country in as many years.
According to reports citing the live broadcast of the Congressional session on Sunday – which appeared to be edited into two pieces on Youtube as of Monday to omit Dávila’s assault – Dávila punched Burgos during a short break called in the session as a result of leftist Congressmen loyal to Castillo shouting over the parliamentary procedure and making proceedings impossible.
Dávila is a far-left former Free Peru that now belongs to the “Magisterial Bloc of National Concertation,” a pro-government Free Peru splinter party. Burgos is an independent but formerly belonged to the conservative populist Podemos Peru party. Burgos left the party in October for being insufficiently conservative, citing his “anti-communist stance.”
Video of the session on Sunday shows far-left lawmakers trying to shout down the debate in defense of Castillo when the President of the Congress, José Williams, calls for a 15-minute recess to return to some semblance of order. The leftist lawmakers were calling for police to release Castillo, who is facing criminal charges of “rebellion” (treason) and rupture of the constitutional order. The took the opportunity that Williams had called for a moment of silence for those killed in pro-Castillo protests this weekend to shout and drown out the debate.
During this break, Dávila runs across the Congress floor and reached Burgos, whose back is turned to Dávila. He then proceeds to hit him forcefully in the back of the head and neck and immediately runs away.
Burgos attempted to run after Dávila and return the punch but several Free Peru lawmakers intervened to keep Dávila safe.
Peruvian news reports have not offered any context as to why Dávila chose to attack Burgos as opposed to any other conservative lawmakers, or if the two have an acrimonious history. It remains unclear what Dávila’s objective in the attack is, as he only threw one punch and his colleagues immediately intervened to prevent a brawl.
Following the attack, Burgos called Dávila a “terrorist” and “coward,” comparing him to the Marxist terrorists of Peru’s Shining Path organization.
“He attacked me from the back, as they tend to do. They are cowards,” Burgos said, referring to communists generally. “I chased after him but, as usual, his associates protected him because they are the associates of Pedro Castillo – the ones who have gotten rich in the Castillo government with the licenses, the contracts they have gotten.”
“That’s why they didn’t want to vote for the impeachment. That is the truth,” Burgos alleged. “They have done a lot of business with the state and even – the one who attacked me, the coward who attacked me from the back, has contracts with the state. no?”
Burgos also referred to Dávila as a “terrorist” on Twitter and accused all Castillo supporters of “only seeking chaos and anarchy, spreading fear with marches in the streets and defending a corrupt dictator like [Castillo].” Elsewhere, he said the congressman was acting “like all Shining Pathers, all the communists … they murdered politicians, governors, state officials in the past.”
Ante el cobarde ataque del terrorista Congresista pasión Dávila y quiénes lo rodean, solo buscan el caos y la anarquía, asustando marchas en las calles y defendiendo a un corrupto y dictador como @PedroCastilloTe pic.twitter.com/XuVfgf5S1G
— Juan Burgos (@JuanBurgos2021) December 11, 2022
Burgos also lodged a formal ethnic complaint against Dávila, who faces formal censure for the attack. Burgos has also filed a police complaint on charges of battery.
Peru eliminated legislative immunity in February 2021, leaving Dávila open to criminal proceedings.
The left-wing congressman has expressed no remorse for his actions.
“I am a human being, but I have no regret,” he reportedly said following his attack, accusing Burgos and fellow conservatives of “attacking at all levels every day – the aggression is not just physical, but verbal.”
Prior to his assault, Dávila had been one of Peru’s most loyal Castillo supporters, even as his approval ratings plummeted and he faced a third round of impeachment votes. The Peruvian constitution allows Congress to impeach presidents for “moral incapacity,” a poorly defined term which allows for impeachments to occur nearly every time an opposition party takes control of Congress.
Castillo’s latest defense for his actions has apparently come from Guillermo Olivera, a man identified as an attorney and former aide to the president, who made public remarks this weekend claiming that Castillo had been drugged prior to attempting to dissolve Congress.
“When he read – the ex-president – that message read by other people, some minutes prior, they gave him a beverage,” Olivera told reporters during a press conference. “They gave him a beverage. The person who called me said that, that they gave him a beverage, a supposed water, and after drinking the water he felt dumbed down, that is why he read.”
Esta defensa no puede ser real ptm pic.twitter.com/hVBHqKOENU
— Perú Out Of Context (@OutPeru) December 10, 2022
Olivera has since clarified that he is not Castillo’s lawyer and that he only spoke out because relatives of the president had reached out to him. He has not specified who the “they” who allegedly drugged Castillo are, or what sort of drug may have been in the “supposed water.”
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