(Lima) Thousands of demonstrators in Peru converged on Lima to protest en masse there on Monday against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte and for new elections, despite a state of emergency declared in the Peruvian capital and three other regions.
“We made the decision to go to Lima” from Monday, announced Julio Vilca, a leader of the protest from the province of Ilave (South).
The protesters, who demand the resignation of the Peruvian president, the immediate holding of elections and the dissolution of Parliament, want to reach the capital to give more weight to their demands. Clashes between police and demonstrators have killed at least 42 people in five weeks.
Groups of protesters began arriving over the weekend to take “control of the city”, they said.
Sunday evening, dozens of demonstrators, framed by a large police force, marched peacefully from the city center to the tourist district of Miraflores in Lima, to cries of “Dina junk, down with the dictatorship” or “Dina, Corrupted assassin! “.
“It will be stronger tomorrow [lundi] and the 17 [mardi]. The regions are already arriving in Lima, we demand that Boluarte resign and that they close the Parliament immediately. We don’t want any more deaths,” says Jasmin Reinoso, 25, nurse from Ayacucho, who has been in Lima for 2 months.
At least three thousand people from Andahuaylas (southeast), one of the epicenters of the demonstrations in December, were preparing Sunday afternoon to go by cars and trucks to the Peruvian capital, according to RPP radio.
The state of emergency, declared on Saturday and in force for 30 days in Lima and three other regions, authorizes the army to intervene to maintain order and above all suspends freedom of movement and assembly.
In addition to Lima, the departments of Cuzco and Puno (south) and the port of Callao, next to the capital are subject to the state of emergency which had already been decreed in mid-December throughout Peru, for 30 days.
“We hope that this situation [les protestations] will change radically and the path of dialogue will be restored, ”Alberto Otarola’s chief of staff told the Latina television channel.
Otarola reaffirmed that Boluarte “will not resign. Out of a sense of historical responsibility and because the resignation of Dina Boluarte would open the door to anarchy. It would be irresponsible of Mr.me Boluarte to leave at a time when the country is going through these problems”.
“There is a small organized group funded by drug trafficking and illegal mining that wants to take power by force,” he also accused.
The suspended Machu Picchu train
Sunday, car traffic remained blocked on a hundred sections of roads in 10 of the 25 regions of Peru, especially in the south, the epicenter of the dispute.
Among these regions are Puno, Arequipa and Cuzco, according to the land transport authority, adding that there had never been so many roadblocks.
The train to Machu Picchu, the only way to access the famous Inca site, was still suspended.
Local unions say the tourism sector is losing up to seven million soles (about C$2.5 million) a day due to the crisis.
The protests erupted after the dismissal and arrest on December 7 of socialist President Pedro Castillo, accused of having tried to carry out a coup d’etat by wanting to dissolve the Parliament which was preparing to oust him from power.
Mme Boluarte, who was Mr. Castillo’s vice-president, succeeded him in accordance with the Constitution. She comes from the same left-wing party as him. But the protesters see her as a “traitor”.
“Spiral of Violence”
Some 500 people attended a mass in Spanish and Quechua on Sunday in the cathedral in central Lima in memory of the killed protesters but also of the police officer who was burned alive in the town of Juliaca, on the Bolivian border.
The Archbishop of Lima, Carlos Castillo Mattosoglio, launched: “The spilled blood does not cry for revenge” calling for “peace”, “fraternity” and an end to the “spiral of violence”.
The violence is concentrated in the southern Andes, where the Quechuas and Aymaras live. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights advocates better integration of these communities into Peruvian society to end the unrest.
The victims “died because they demanded equality. There is too much corruption, ”said on the forecourt of the cathedral Benito Soto Escobar, glazier from Huancavelica (South).
The Deputy Minister of Territorial Governance, Jose Muro, promised TV Peru that the government would establish “spaces for dialogue” throughout the territory.
Dina Boluarte is the sixth person to occupy the Peruvian presidency in five years, in a country which is experiencing a permanent political crisis punctuated by suspicions of corruption.