[News] The Peruvian military’s partnership with Israeli arms manufacturer signals deepening complicity in the Gaza genocide
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Aug 20 20:49:42 EDT 2025
mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/08/the-peruvian-militarys-partnership-with-israeli-arms-manufacturer-signals-deepening-complicity-in-the-gaza-genocide/>
The Peruvian military’s partnership with Israeli arms manufacturer
signals deepening complicity in the Gaza genocide
Emma Lucia Llano
August 20, 2025
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54633801762_2b34af3a8e_k-scaled.jpg
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte speaks at a ceremony marking the 42nd
anniversary of the National Police of Peru’s Counter-Terrorism
Directorate, DIRCOTE, on July 5, 2025. (Photo: Flickr/Presidencia Perú)
In the Peruvian Andes, on Pukamoqo hill, stands a 26-foot-tall statue of
Jesus Christ, named the Protector of Cuzco. It was a gift given to
Cuzqueños by a group of Palestinian refugees who had fled to Peru during
World War II, as a symbol of gratitude for the community’s acceptance.
The first stone was laid on June 24, 1944, coinciding with Inti Raymi, a
Quechua celebration of the sun god Inti. It was the first public Inti
Raymi celebration since the Spanish colonial government had outlawed the
practice in the late 16th century. It has been celebrated every year since.
In 2023, both communities– indigenous Peruvians and Palestinians– faced
a sharp escalation in violence from the governments that rule them.
Between late December 2022 and March 2023, nearly 70 indigenous
dissidents were murdered by the Peruvian police and armed forces at
protests across the country. As a result, Peruvian President Dina
Boluarte would be investigated for genocide and crimes against humanity.
For the bloodshed, the public christened her//“Dina Asesina.”
Violence against indigenous Peruvians is certainly not unique to
Boluarte’s presidency– it is a ubiquitous part of Peru’s history. But
this was different, in its scale and its public brutality. It was not
since Peru’s Internal Conflict, which took place between 1985 and 2000,
that Peruvians had seen carnage like this.
When Israel began its latest genocidal campaign in Gaza, Peru was mostly
silent while its neighbors– Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil– made
strong statements supporting the Palestinian people. Though the Peruvian
government released a statement expressing solidarity with Israel
following the October 7, 2023 attack, Boluarte herself has not spoken
publicly about the matter.
Peru recognized Palestinian statehood in 2011. Like most of its fellow
United Nations member states, Peru regularly votes against Israeli
occupation and in favor of humanitarian relief for Palestine. As
recently as June 12, 2025
<https://x.com/UN_News_Centre/status/1933267689222316538/photo/1>, the
Peruvian delegation voted in favor of a permanent and unconditional
ceasefire in Gaza.
Four days later, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian
Territories Francesca Albanese released a report on the economy of
genocide
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-economy-occupation-economy-genocide-report-special-rapporteur>
in Gaza, naming Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace as two of the biggest
benefactors in the ongoing genocide. Just two days after that, FAME
(Fábrica de Armas y Municiones del Ejército,) Peru’s state-owned
munitions company, began a private international competition to
determine a strategic partner for their artillery systems. The
competitors were Israel’s Elbit Systems, Turkey’s Roketsan, and China’s
Norinco, with Elbit emerging as the winner on July 14, 2025.
If signed, this contract would undoubtedly make Peru a party to two
genocidal crimes– its own and Israel’s. As Albanese wrote,
“International partnerships providing weaponry and technical support
have enhanced Israeli capacity to perpetuate apartheid and, recently, to
sustain its assault on Gaza.”
The contract is the first of its kind in the region, inspiring
celebration in military and business publications in Israel and the
Americas. Though the contract is initially valued at $60M USD (212M in
Peruvian soles), business publications have highlighted the potential
for growth. “This deal marks a strategic expansion of Elbit Systems in
Latin America,” wrote /Israel Defense/
<https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/65721?fbclid=IwY2xjawL6DxdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFXczVjRVNpOVZlaGZCWGR5AR4Klfq4JMUPaeCSMnZE-DDFD-kSZhmCyZoK3EyezZ4WRZKV-gpbz_K43ZglGQ_aem_vXSonXOGgF79gGnRcYCu0g>.
/Globes/
<https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-elbit-wins-peruvian-puls-artillery-system-tender-1001516935>
praised Peru as the “exception” among “governments in the region
adopting anti-Israeli policies.”
Given Israel’s history of violent intervention in the region, supplying
billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry to Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet’s regime and Argentina’s military fascist junta during the
“Dirty War,” South America’s leftist governments have good reasons to
reject partnerships with Israeli businesses. For Elbit, establishing
operations in a country surrounded by Palestine’s allies “strengthens
[Peru’s] role as a future regional center,” as Army Recognition
<https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/peru-selects-israeli-puls-rocket-launcher-to-modernize-artillery-with-tech-transfer-and-joint-production>
reported.
Though coverage has largely focused on the advanced long-range artillery
systems, the contract also includes several types of firearms and
ammunition, tactical gear, bombs, grenades, drones, surveillance
vehicles, and “various weapons.” Perhaps most concerning for Peruvian
activists is the cutting-edge surveillance technology that will soon be
in the possession of the Peruvian state department.
Elbit’s surveillance technology has been used to surveil migrants at the
US-Mexico border and extensively in Palestine. According to the American
Friends Service Committee
<https://investigate.afsc.org/company/elbit-systems>, Elbit drones were
used “during its 2014 assault, during which hundreds of Palestinians in
the occupied West Bank were arbitrarily arrested.” Arbitrary arrests of
indigenous dissidents have been one of the tools of suppression used by
the Boluarte government and other anti-indigenous administrations in Peru.
While FAME’s competition was ongoing, Boluarte and the Peruvian Congress
were working on a new law that grants amnesty to law enforcement,
military, and government officials who were involved in Peru’s Internal
Conflict. During this time, fighting between the Peruvian government and
the Shining Path resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people.
Towards the end of the conflict, under the presidency of Alberto
Fujimori, 300,000 people were forcibly sterilized. The vast majority of
the victims were indigenous. Boluarte’s new law, criticized by human
rights groups, ensures that the full extent of the atrocities of the
Peruvian government will not be known, and those impacted will never get
justice.
The new contract, coinciding with the de facto pardon of those
responsible for some of the worst crimes committed against indigenous
Peruvians, should raise alarm for the Peruvian press, yet the issue went
unmentioned. Peru’s most popular newspaper, /El Commercio, /has yet to
cover the story. Given the paper’s conservative leanings, one might
think that they would celebrate the contract’s potential to create jobs
and a new international partner.
It wasn’t until almost two weeks after the end of the competition, /La
República/ published an article
<https://larepublica.pe/politica/2025/07/27/fame-eligio-puls-para-el-ejercito-el-sistema-israeli-de-lanzadores-de-cohetes-ejercito-del-peru-hnews-1766043>
that went into exhaustive detail about the competition and ensuing
contract, but did not mention Palestine, Gaza, or Elbit’s role in the
ongoing genocide. The newspaper has not published anything about the
contract since. The only two local publications that have written about
Peru’s forthcoming involvement in the genocide are /Hildebrandt/
<https://www.hildebrandtensustrece.com/reportaje/articulo/2595> and /El
Salmon/
<https://www.elsalmon.info/post/per%C3%BA-ensamblar%C3%A1-armas-israel%C3%ADes-del-silencio-a-la-complicidad>/./
Elbit Systems has yet to announce the contract on their website. The
only official announcement of the contract is on F.A.M.E’s website. It
is unclear how Globes, Israel Defense, Army Recognition, and Zona
Militar got this information before the local press. Whether the media’s
silence is a result of ignorance or active suppression, the consequences
of that silence could be disastrous for indigenous Peruvian activists
who are uninformed about their government’s new deadly tools.
Solidarity between indigenous Peruvians and Palestinians predates the
establishment of Israel and continues into the present. Now, their
respective enemies have become associates in a lucrative economic
alliance that shares a goal: the removal of indigenous people from their
own land.
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