Peru: Dina Boluarte condemns violent acts and says that ‘they will not go unpunished’

Dina Boluarte confirmed that her “Government is firm” and accused the protesters who are asking for her resignation of wanting to “break the rule of law” in the midst of the protests that reached Lima this Thursday, with clashes between protesters and security forces.

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“I want to deny the false news (…) the government is firm and its cabinet is more united than ever,” Boluarte emphasized in a press statement held with a group of ministers at the Government Palace in Lima.

The ruler assured that, despite the increase in protests and confrontations, maintains its invitation to dialogue with political forces and social that demand his resignation and the closure of Congress, as well as the call for general elections and a constituent assembly.

“Again I call for dialogue, I call for calm,” he remarked.

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Boluarte, however, addressed the protesters to tell them that “your protests are things that you know are outside the law.”

Also accused them of wanting to “break the rule of lawgenerate chaos and disorder, to seize the power of the nation”.

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“They are wrong, from the Government we tell the Peruvian people: the situation is controlled and will be controlled“, he maintained before adding that they know that “those gentlemen are not going to cease their intention to break the rule of law.”

In this regard, he announced that the authorities will act “with the full weight of the law” and are “individualizing these bad citizens who are generating acts of violence.”

The ‘Taking of Lima’

A large demonstration, with the majority participation of people coming from the Andes, to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte this Thursday in Lima led to violent clashes with the forces of order, the protests were baptized by the protesters as the “Take of Lima “.

At the same time, in Arequipa, Peru’s second city, a protester was killed and 10 others were injured during a pitched battle between the forces of order and a thousand outraged people who at the point of throwing stones tried to storm the airport, being repelled with tear gas.

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“we mourn the death of a person during clashes on the Añashuayco bridge, a road located in the north of the city,” the Ombudsman’s Office said on Twitter.

Likewise, he asked the prosecutor’s office for a quick investigation of the facts to determine responsibilities.

In the evening a fire broke out in an old semi-uninhabited building near Plaza San Martín, where hundreds of protesters were grouped.

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“I am in Lima to defend the country because there is a lot of corruption. Dina does not represent us. We are going to stay a week to continue marching,” Demetrio Jiménez, who arrived from Puno, told AFP.

The airports of Cusco and Arequipa They suspended their operations for security. The railway service between Cusco and the Inca citadel Machu Picchu, a jewel of tourism in Peru, was also suspended, the operating company reported.

Ombudsman highlights day without deaths in the capital of Peru

The ombudsman, Eliana Revollar, stressed this Friday that the massive anti-government mobilization in Lima did not have “a social cost” of deaths in the capital of Peru, despite the fact that there were two deaths in other parts of the country.

When taking stock of the march called “Tama de Lima”, Revollar told the RPP radio station that “it has been a quiet day, there has been no social cost in deaths”, although there have been “injuries and detainees”.

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“In the capital, it has been a day that has been carried out within the margins, apart from the fire,” which occurred in a mansion in the historic center, a world heritage site, he noted.

For Revollar, the “peaceful protest” on Thursday in Lima is noteworthy, adding that “violent groups” who attacked the National Police in some parts of the city, they have to be made available to the authorities.

On the other hand, the ombudsman reported that, on Thursday, “two people lost their lives in the southern cities of Macusani, in the Puno region, and in Arequipa, as a result of clashes with law enforcement in protests that took place in various parts of the territory.

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‘Immaculate’ actions of the authorities

The head of state also praised the “immaculate” actions of the National Police during the demonstrations this Thursday in Lima “and in some targeted places where violent protests have occurred.”

He included in his thanks to the members of the National Prosecutor’s Office, the Ombudsman’s Office and the press, to which he expressed his solidarity “for” those men and women of the press who have been attacked” during the protests.

“The acts of violence generated throughout these days, from December until now, in January,
they will not go unpunishedthe Government will act within the framework of the Constitution and the laws,” he said.

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Boluarte assured, in this sense, that this Thursday “they wanted to take over three airports in the interior of the country” and that the reports that the Government has indicate that this “has been prepared with premeditationwith great anticipation”. “I reiterate that all the rigor of the law will fall on the people who are committing these criminal acts of vandalism that we are not going to allow,” he said.

Until now, the protests have left 44 demonstrators and a policeman deadwhile another 14 people, including an unborn baby and four Haitian citizens, have lost their lives from various causes caused by roadblocks and demonstrations.

Santiago Andres Venera Salazar

INTERNATIONAL WRITING