Havana/The departure of the Cuban ambassador in Peru, Carlos Rafael Zamora Rodríguez, announced in the last paragraph of a official statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lima, occurs after repeated complaints against him for political activism and espionage. On October 28, Vice Chancellor Félix Denegri summoned the diplomat to “discuss the activities carried out during his administration.” Two days later, Zamora packed his bags and took off back to Havana.
The Peruvian Foreign Ministry did not offer many explanations. But in the halls of Congress, in the opinion columns of the main Peruvian newspapers and in the television programs of conservative channels, the unofficial version is unique: Zamora was not a simple diplomat, but a political agent of the Island’s intelligence apparatus operating with immunity in Peruvian territory.
The diplomatic career of The Rooster Zamora, as she is nicknamed, has always been linked to the work of “political analysis in complex scenarios.” His “diplomatic” journey included destinations such as Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia, countries where Havana has maintained intense activism since 2000 in the construction of the Bolivarian axis.
In Quito, between 2013 and 2016, he maintained direct dialogue not only with the Foreign Ministry, but with movements aligned to Rafael Correa, especially unions and youth organizations.
Former Cuban officer Enrique García, exiled in the United States, personally met Zamora in the Cuban Intelligence Directorate building, located on Línea and A, in Havana’s Vedado
The interim government of Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia accused Cuba and Venezuela in 2019 of being behind the violence in the country in support of Evo Morales. The Minister of Communication, Roxana Lizárraga, stated that Zamora – then ambassador to that country – was part of the Cuban intelligence that intervened in conflicts in Nicaragua and Ecuador.
Also the former Cuban officer Enrique García, exiled in the United States, declared to Peru21 that knew personally to Zamora in the Cuban Intelligence Directorate building, located on Línea and A, in El Vedado, Havana. García also assured that both the ambassador and his wife – Maura Isabel Juampere Pérez – hold the rank of colonel within that institution.
Zamora presented his credentials in Peru in December 2021, just a few days after the inauguration of Pedro Castillo, the former president deposed and imprisoned after his failed 2022 self-coup. Various sectors of the Peruvian right have been pushing for his expulsion and demanding it as an act of democratic hygiene. Congresswoman Patricia Chirinos (Avanza País) accused him of “turning the Embassy into a center of ideological operations.” Retired Admiral Jorge Montoya, from Renovación Popular, went further: “Cuba does not send ambassadors, it sends G2 operators.”
The offensive grew when several journalistic reports reported meetings of the ambassador with leaders of the hard wing of the Sutep teachers’ union, with groups close to Perú Libre and with student organizations that demand Castillo. For the Lima right, Cuba was reactivating its old ideological export script in Peru, this time taking advantage of a politically polarized country without solid institutional antibodies.
According to an investigation published by the newspaper Peru21 At the beginning of 2025, high-level sources in the Peruvian government affirmed that Cuban counterintelligence agents would be collaborating in the protection of the Peruvian politician Vladimir Cerrón, a fugitive since October 2023 after being sentenced to three and a half years in prison for corruption related to the irregular construction of an airfield. Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea told the press that, if the intervention of foreign agents in Cerrón’s escape is confirmed, Peru could escalate the diplomatic conflict to the breaking point of relations with Cuba. The report indicated that the Police identified Cuban citizens who met with members of the Peru Libre party to coordinate actions linked to Cerrón; The possible participation of Peruvian police officers as collaborators is also being investigated.
The departure of the Cuban ambassador from Lima occurs at a time of redefinition of Peruvian foreign policy, also strained by the diplomatic clash with Mexico
The authorities claim that they were close to arresting him in January 2025, when a technical error temporarily revealed his whereabouts in an exclusive area south of Lima, information that coincided with data that the Police attributed to previously identified Cuban agents.
In Havana, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not responded to Zamora’s dismissal or to the accusations of espionage. There are also, so far, no reports in the official press or personal statements from the ambassador, a silence that in the regime’s liturgy is equivalent to tacit confirmation.
The departure of the Cuban ambassador from Lima occurs at a time of redefinition of Peruvian foreign policy, also strained by the diplomatic clash with Mexico. In the document published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru, it is reported that they analyzed the request of the Government of Mexico to grant safe passage to Betssy Chávez – former minister and former president of the Council of Ministers during the Castillo government, currently prosecuted for the crimes of rebellion and conspiracy after the attempted self-coup –, who requested asylum in the Mexican embassy.
After internal consultations and with international experts, the Foreign Ministry concludes that, in recent years, some countries have used the 1954 Caracas Convention improperly, granting asylum to people prosecuted for common crimes and not for political persecution. Peru considers that this practice distorts the purpose of asylum and rejects that it is used to evade justice. For this reason, it will begin a diplomatic process in the Organization of American States (OAS) to propose modifications to the Convention, with the aim of avoiding abuses and ensuring respect for the rule of law in the region.
Peru’s relationship with the political axis that includes Mexico, Cuba and other allies of the so-called Latin American progressivism entered a zone of open friction. The dismissal of the Cuban ambassador reinforced the perception that Peru is rearranging its priorities, distancing itself from governments close to Havana and from the old diplomatic framework that in previous decades allowed the Island to operate without major political counterweights in the Andean countries. The crisis with Mexico and the departure of Zamora, seen together, illustrate a diplomatic turn where Lima has decided to demonstrate that it will not tolerate automatic shields or ideological activism protected by the immunities of diplomacy.
