Mats on the floor, crowded hallways, and breakfast lines. D.dozens of peasants woke up in a after traveling more than 24 hours on the Andean highways to request the resignation of the president of Peru Dina Boluarte.
the hundreds of peasants from Cusco, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Puno and Andahuaylas they arrived in buses and trucks chewing coca leaves to satisfy their hunger.
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We come to make our voices heard. we are terribly forgotten
Some arrived for the first time in Lima, which this Wednesday celebrates 488 years of Spanish foundation. “We come from the province of Chumbivilcas (Cusco) to defend our rights. We come to make our voices heard. We are terribly forgotten,” farmer Edwin Condori, 43, told AFP, exhausted by the journey.
Condori and dozens of residents of Cusco they spent their first night on mats on the concrete floor of a room 7 x 8 meters from a local supporter of a left-wing group, located in Plaza Bolognesi in Lima.
To ‘take’ Lima
The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) called for a national strike and a mobilization on Thursday. “We want Dina Boluarte’s resignation. We don’t feel represented by her,” said Jesús Gómez, who was wearing a sheep’s wool hat and a red and black thread scarf.
We want the resignation of Dina Boluarte. We don’t feel represented by it
“We have come in an organized way to take over Lima, the streets of Lima, to paralyze Lima to be heard,” said this agronomist from Chumbivilcas who grows potatoes, corn and wheat on his small farm.
The demonstrators arrived with backpacks and little clothing for their protests.
On Wednesday morning, a group of four women cooked “un aguadito” in large pots, a soup with chicken giblets, vegetables and rice seasoned with coriander.
Too coca farmers arrived from the VRAEM valley, who formed lines to eat soup for breakfast provided with small bowls. The three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) are prepared with food donated by people in solidarity.
The VRAEM, an acronym for the Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers, is a gigantic soil that it is home to half of the coca leaf plantations in the country. After breakfast, each person must wash their plate and spoon in a rustic sink. Each person enters the premises showing their identity document.
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“We have come to make our demand heard. Practically those of us who are Ayacucho and the VRAEM are totally forgotten,” said 30-year-old coca farmer Nélida Aguirre indignantly.
“We don’t have a good education, we don’t have a good health. We are very forgotten by the government,” said the farmer who had a bag of coca leaves.
Aguirre ruled out that the peasants who mobilized to the Peruvian capital are paid for by drug traffickers in their mobilizations, as the government affirms. “We of the VRAEM are not financed by drug traffickers, we are not terrorists. We are peasants,” he said.
“We have come to make you feel that we peasants have guts. Tomorrow if Lima is taken it will be so that they (the rulers) put themselves in the shoes of how much we peasants suffer,” he said.
payment to the land
The residents and leaders of the National Federation of Rural Women from the interior of the country began the day with a Andean ritual to Pachamama (Mother Earth), placing on the ground photographs of some victims of the protests.
Tomorrow for us is a day of struggle. This protest is until (the) usurper resigns
In the ritual, farm land, corn grains, water, fruits and flowers were used, which they brought from Cusco. “Tomorrow for us is a day of struggle. This protest is until (the) usurper resigns,” said the leader Aurora Coronado of the Junín region, about President Dina Boluarte.
Hundreds of inhabitants of Cusco also settled in an area of the San Marcos University, taken over by its students. The protesters’ demands are essentially political: Boluarte’s resignation, immediate general elections and a Constituent Assembly. The Government has already rejected all these requests.
According to the Ombudsman the protests have left at least 42 dead in five weeks and resumed on January 4 after a truce due to the end of the year holidays
AFP.
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