Peru decreed this Saturday the state of emergency for 30 days in the regions of Lima, Cusco, Callao and Punoauthorizing the military to intervene together with the Police to protect public order in the midst of protests calling for the resignation of the president Dina Boluartewhich leave 42 dead in five weeks.
(Read here: Peru: political pressure grows with extended marches to Lima)
The measure that governs from the January 15 It contemplates that “the National Police of Peru maintains control of internal order with the support of the Armed Forces,” according to the decree of the Executive Power published by the official gazette around midnight on Saturday.
In addition, it suspends the constitutional rights of inviolability of domicile and the freedoms of transit through the national territory, assembly and personal freedom and security.
The government decision comes as mobilizations are announced from southern Peru to the Peruvian capital starting Monday, in an action that the authorities describe as a “riot in Lima” in an attempt to destabilize Boluarte.
Peru began Saturday with more than 100 sections of highway blocked by protesters, while the Cusco airport resumed operations, a day after President Dina Boluarte assured that she would not resign.
The southern Andean regions, among the most marginalized in Peru, are plunged into an incessant social upheaval that has left at least 42 dead since the beginning of December, according to civil leaders and human rights organizations.
“There are extremist sectors that seek to generate disorder and chaos, with subordinate interests (…),” Boluarte said Friday night, when the political pressure demanding his resignation grew. As Pedro Castillo’s vice president, Boluarte took office on December 7 after he was ousted by Congress for a failed coup.
On Saturday the blockades affected 11 regions of the Andes and the Amazon, especially in the south, near the borders with Bolivia and Chile.
According to statistics from the Superintendency of Land Transportation, never before have there been so many cuts in the current crisis.
But in Cusco, a mecca for international tourism, the authorities reopened operations at the Velasco Astete airport, closed for two days for security.
With the measure, the government seeks to recover activity in the area, where local unions affirm that they lose up to seven million soles a day (1.7 million dollars) due to the crisis.
The trains to Machu Picchu, the only way to access this jewel of world tourism, were still suspended.
‘We reject violence’
Boluarte addressed the country on Friday after the resignation and replacement of the Ministers of the Interior, Labor and Women.
The president urged Congress to speed up the procedures to hold early elections in April 2024 and apologized for the deaths caused by the crisis. “I apologize for this situation and for what has not been done to avoid these tragic events.
But just as I ask for forgiveness, I ask that we reject violence.” Various groups, especially from the southern Andes, demand the resignation of Boluarte, whom they consider responsible for the violence.
They also call for the closure of the right-wing controlled Congress and the immediate holding of elections.
Requests for the release of Castillo -in preventive detention while he is being prosecuted for alleged rebellion- and the formation of a Constituent Assembly are also part of the agenda.
Andes without respite
The protests were reactivated last week after a kind of truce at the end of the year and have concentrated in the southern Andes, where Quechua and Aymara communities live that, analysts agree, have been historically marginalized.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which made a visit to the country this week, considered that in order to definitively overcome the crisis it will be necessary to integrate these communities.
Some groups of protesters from these regions threaten to travel to Lima for a “takeover of the city” that will force Boluarte to resign and create a framework that will force elections as soon as possible.
“We have the decision to go to Lima (from Monday), yes or yes. We cannot indicate the time, because what we want is to travel in unity,” said Julio Vilca, a leader from the province of Ilave, in the Puno region. .
Threat from radical groups
The authorities insist that ultra-radical sectors are behind the protests, including remnants of the Shining Path guerrilla group.
As proof, they have presented the capture this week of a former member of that organization, Rocío Leandro, known within the group as “Comrade Cusi.”
According to a police spokesman, General Óscar Arriola, Leandro financed the vandalism that left a dozen dead in the Ayacucho region.
He defined the hiker as “a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist assassin”, financed the vandalism that left a dozen dead in the Ayacucho region.
“Cusi” and seven people captured along with her intend to form a new terrorist group called New Red Fraction, police said.
Left-wing organizations such as the Peru Libre party, for which Castillo and Boluarte were elected in 2021, rejected the police version, considering it a strategy to criminalize the protest.
Boluarte proposed advancing the elections to April 2024, but the protesters reject his offer.
#Peru #decrees #state #emergency #Lima #deploys #soldiers