Protests in Peru set their sights on Lima again

Anti-government protesters block the Pan-American highway in Cusco, Peru, Friday, January 13, 2023. The protesters demand an immediate electoral advance, the resignation of Boluarte, the release of impeached President Pedro Castillo, and justice for the 48 protesters killed in clashes. with the police. (AP Photo/Hugo Curotto)

LIMA (AP) — Protests against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, which have already left 50 dead, seemed to be gathering again on Monday in the country’s capital.

After several days in which the southern region of Puno, where the visited Lake Titicaca is located, was the epicenter of the demonstrations, Aymara communities in the region were getting ready to travel to Lima on Monday. In the capital, it was expected that close to 50,000 aimaras would fuel the mobilizations to demand the march of Boluarte.

“We leave this Monday at the latest. (…) we want is to travel in unity among all the Aymara peoples,” Julio Vilca, from the Aymara town of Ilave, told the Peruvian newspaper La República.

In Cusco, another southern region where the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu is located, other groups of Quechua peasants are preparing to leave for the capital.

Some groups of ronderos, peasants who patrol their towns as a form of traditional security, have already begun to arrive in Lima from the Cajamarca region, in the northern Peruvian highlands, where Boluarte’s ousted predecessor, Pedro Castillo, is from.

The call in the capital was announced as a “March of the four suyos”, in reference to the political division of the Inca empire into four jurisdictions called suyos. The same name was used in 2000 for one of the largest protests against former President Alberto Fujimori, who was ruling at the time after a disputed re-election and fled the country that year amid corruption scandals.

In recent days, thousands of Lima residents have marched from the center of the city to the districts of the wealthy classes, demanding the resignation of Boluarte and an end to the violent repression of the protests, which have generated dozens of deaths in various regions of the country. .

The General Confederation of Workers, the most important union in the country, has called a national strike against the government for next Thursday and demands the resignation of Boluarte and the unpopular board of directors of Congress.

Several groups of peasants were scheduled to march in the capital on Monday.

The number of deaths in relation to the protests grew on Sunday with the death of José Santos Medina Vega, 39, in the Amazon region of San Martín. The man died “due to a traffic accident linked to road blockades,” according to the records of the Ombudsman’s Office.

On Sunday, mobilizations, strikes and roadblocks were registered in 35 provinces, most of them in the southern regions of the country, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, which also reported 99 national roadblocks and “a rally for peace and in rejection of the stoppage of economic activities in the province of San Martín”.

Fifty people have died since the convulsion began: 41 civilians in clashes, eight due to traffic accidents and events related to blockades, and a policeman burnt to death after being attacked by a mob, according to the Ombudsman’s report.

This Sunday a state of emergency began, which suspends the fundamental rights of citizens, for 30 days the department of Lima, which includes the capital; the region and province of Callao, adjacent to the city of Lima; and in the south, in Puno and Cusco; a province of the Apurímac region; two others from Madre de Dios; and a district in Moquegua.

The protests – which demand an advance of general elections, the resignation of Boluarte and the closure of Congress – gained new impetus this week after resuming on Wednesday the 4th, after a partial truce due to the end of the year holidays.

Among the protesters there are those who also demand that Castillo, Boluarte’s predecessor who was deposed and remains in preventive detention for 18 months while being investigated for alleged rebellion, be released.

Boluarte assumed the government after Castillo, who had been president since 2021, was removed by Congress after trying to dissolve this state power with a television message on December 7. The current president was vice president and she was elected on the same list with her predecessor. Parliament swore her in on the same day Castillo’s dismissal for being her constitutional successor.

Castillo was arrested when he was in a vehicle with his entourage on an avenue in the center of Lima. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, he was going to the Mexican embassy to seek political asylum.

---

Source

---