Why is Peru burning in support of a coup accused of corruption?

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As the riots claim the lives of at least 18 protesters and the government plunges into chaos, Pedro Castillo maintains a reference image for thousands of farmers, workers and residents of the humblest Andean strip

Peru is now watching carnage without any veil. Authorities have counted 18 dead, all protesters, and more than 350 injured – 119 of them police officers – as of the 100 long riots that have ravaged the country. The epicenter of the clashes is in Ayacucho, where 7 people have been killed and 52 injured in clashes with security forces, especially during the attack on the regional airport. In thirteen of the country’s twenty-four departments, the highways are on fire. There are at least five minors in the morgue. One of them was called Beckham Romario Quispe Garfias. At the age of 17, his hobby was football, as evidenced by his name. You will never see a stadium. The government has declared a state of emergency and a curfew since last night in the regions with the highest levels of cholera on the streets.

Violence has escalated since last night, when a judge ordered former President Pedro Castillo to a total of 18 months in protective custody while his trial for rebellion and conspiracy is prepared. To supporters of Peru Libre’s leader, the resolution appears to be “punishment.” They already believe that their leader has been “kidnapped” since December 7, the day he ordered his absurd and short-lived coup and ended up in custody. The Public Prosecution Service confirms that the judge’s decision is well-founded. The risk of flight weighed on the prisoner, especially after he tried to reach the Mexican embassy a few minutes into his frustrated personal coup. It also does not help that the ambassador of this country reminds time and again that the way is clear to apply for asylum.

The third leg of this diabolical chess game, the Peruvian Executive, meanwhile, offers a different view of the seed of the riots. The interior and defense ministries are convinced that anti-system groups and Shining Path sympathizers are behind the dizzying escalation of riots that “try to break the social and democratic order.” Between the two extremes, the ombudsman service and several prefects condemn the repression as a key factor of insecurity. In fact, the Ayacucho regional government has blamed President Dina Boluarte for the deaths and is demanding a transitional government.

The truth is that since the state of emergency was declared this Thursday, more deaths have occurred than in the entire demonstration week before. As police have become more forceful and reports of deaths and injuries from gunfire have spread, incidents have become clouded. At present, more than a hundred roads are blocked across the country, thousands of tourists are trapped in Machu Picchu, Cuzco and other places of interest due to transport suspension, supermarkets are empty and 2,000 Bolivian truck drivers remain stuck at the border. to leave the country. A huge police force has been deployed in the center of Lima due to the increasing arrival of protesters from other departments of the country. They are calling for Castillo’s freedom, Boluarte’s resignation, the closure of Congress and urgent general elections.

Castillo contemplates the devastation from the window of Barbadillo Prison, the headquarters of the police’s Special Operations Directorate. Until now it has remained in a separate module from that which houses Alberto Fujimori, a former president convicted of multiple crimes and, like him, author of a coup d’état, although in his case with sufficient success to allow him to to stage an autocratic coup. regime for years. It is very likely that the two imprisoned ex-presidents will henceforth be seen in the common areas.

The cell of the leader of Perú Libre consists of a room, a private bathroom and another adjoining room with a table and chairs. He is fed the three daily meals typical of the prison regime, although his family has permission to provide him with other foods. The most striking are the visits. He has received some 140 people there so far and it is very likely that this intense rhythm of encounters, unprecedented in a prisoner, will intensify after learning that he will be held until 2024. He will need encouragement. moral. In addition to his relatives, congressmen, party leaders, industry representatives, ambassadors and apparently quite a few lawyers have visited him to leave him their business cards. What is striking, however, is the high turnover of lawyers he has had since his arrest. Most have abandoned him and, according to local media, he appeared in court virtually on Thursday, represented by a public defender.

The only person who has had authentic and valid reasons to visit the former president is the head of the program for persons deprived of liberty, Carlos Fernández. However, he was vetoed when he went to verify his condition in prison. Congressman Betssy Chávez, in turn accused of the coup without depriving her of visiting her boss, told him that Castillo would not receive him. Several social organizations have already denounced their prison privileges.

« It is the first time that our country is governed by a farmer. I am also a son of this land, founded in the sweat of my ancestors. With these words, the rural teacher from Chota became president of Peru on July 28, 2021. This identification with the humble and working class of a nation subject to severe hardship, where social and economic disparities grow unceasingly, is one of the reasons that explain the strong popular support for a politician who is finally in prison for a coup and who received his eighth corruption charge this week.

These masses of farmers, miners, grassroots workers, teachers and residents of the poor fringe of the Andes, disparagingly called “deep Peru,” are the backbone of the demonstrations. Buses full of residents of Cajamarca and other regions who have seen the former president grow up are now arriving in Lima to mobilize for Congress or to replace those who have spent several days in the popular camp in front of his prison. For them, Castillo remains a strong character who took charge so as not to be overwhelmed by the right. He’s the country teacher. The farmer. The trade union man. The Rondero, as the farmers of the Rondes, born in the 1970s, are called to protect agricultural communities against robberies. He is the president stolen from the people by the elites. Nepotism, the distribution of government contracts and other corruption is not discussed.

Many residents of Andahuaylas, a rural and forgotten community in the Andes that serves as an example of Peru’s perpetual lack of reforms to combat misery, are flocking to the protests. If the region is poor, the drought is now destroying its last agricultural resources and thousands of small poultry farms that support the domestic economy. The corona virus is also punishing modest Peru terribly. The crisis is drowning.

In addition to the largest federation of trade unions in Peru, other grassroots organizations are involved in the mobilizations. They are not only responsible for organizing the marches, but also trying to control the rioters and distribute food to the protesters, many of them from municipalities hundreds of kilometers away. Among them are Vraem, which brings together the numerous laborers from the valleys of the rivers Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro; the Red Muqui – a network of environmental and human rights groups based in rural areas – the indigenous associations of the Amazon and Cunarc, the powerful central that brings together the peasant patrols and claims “jurisdictional authority” in seventeen departments of the country. For example, the Cunarc were responsible for enforcing the ‘anti-covid’ measures at the worst moments of the health crisis. As a sign of his power, he recently asked the government to nullify the penal code in the indigenous, aboriginal and peasant communities in his area, as their “own legal system” is applied to them.

“The current conflict goes beyond Castillo. It is the revolt of the people and of a large number of small groups of poor farmers, miners or peasants against years of neglect, injustice and inequality,” experts say in the Peruvian media. Among these “people”, according to analysts, are thousands of anti-Fujimoristas, worried that the current political chaos will translate into an imminent return of Keiko Fujimori to a government that lost to Castillo in the last presidential election, and the renewal of the centralist policies they have ruined the rest of the nation.

Dina Boluarte’s own executive, however, distinguishes between the majority of those mobilized who relate to “sectors dissatisfied” with Peru’s socio-economic situation and the “destabilizing elements”, as the Interior Ministry calls anti-system groups. Police have identified several former members of Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA (Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) during protests in Lima and dozens of roadblocks. He sees them as promoters of the heaviest mobilizations and airport occupations, which have become a new symbol of rebellion.

Source: La Verdad

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