2023-07-19 09:05:23
“We don’t understand why they are waving their war flags again.” the interim president Dina Boluarte prepares this Wednesday for a new survival test. With the support of only 14.4% of Peruvians, according to the latest survey by the CPI consultancy, faces the “third takeover of Lima”a movement that, from the postponed south, returns to the capital to demand what at this point seems impossible: early elections and the closure of the discredited Congress.
Boluarte is observed as one more symptom of the profound crisis of political representation that Peru, with former presidents imprisoned or driven to suicide before being arrested, as happened with Alan García. She takes the new mobilization as a personal challenge. The procession that arrives from Cusco, Piura, Arequipa and Apurímac “is a threat to democracy, the rule of law, institutionality. And we, as a democratic government, are not going to allow or accept it.” Boluarte replaced the dismissed Pedro Castillo last December. Although they belonged to the same party, Perú Libre, apparently on the left, the provisional president did not hesitate to ally with the sectors more conservatives to manage the Executive until 2026. On the eve of the “third takeover”, he emphatically supported the security forces, on whom suspicion of crimes against humanity falls in the demonstrations at the beginning of the year. “They are only doing their job”, and that is to ensure the tranquility of the capital. “You cannot allow the PNP (National Police) to be attacked.”
For the president, the “third take” has no reason to exist, nor did the previous attempts. “I tell the brothers who are marching not to be surprised, deceived, because those who have the political agenda, that is their interest, wanting to create chaos, wanting to sell an inappropriate image of the country abroad, wanting to prevent the investments come to the country.
football first
The normality of Lima has previously been altered by a strong control device. The police look for suspects in the popular neighborhoods and the center. The operation brings its implicit share of racism: the more indigenous traits, the more potentially suspected of wanting to participate in the protest.
“The right to mobilization, the right to protest, has the most importance in a constitutional State of law. These rights are inherent to the democracybut like all rights, it is not an absolute right“warned the head of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM), Alberto Otárola, who went so far as to hold the participants of the demonstration responsible for endangering two soccer matches highly anticipated by the people of Lima. “We all want to see with tranquility the normal development of the classic Alianza Lima with Universitario”.
Fed up and open ending
“The disqualifying official discourse in the face of the protests does nothing but stir up the opposition sentiment“, considered Martín Tanaka, a columnist for the Lima newspaper El Comercio. In his opinion, it is “impossible” to predict the consequences of the “third takeover” given “the instability and volatility of the political situation.” The Peruvians, he added, nevertheless know some things in advance. “There are many reasons why many people sympathize with the protests and are willing to join them. 80% of citizens disapprove of the conduct of the Government and 91%, the performance of Congress.” To this we must add that, after the crisis of last December and January of this year, the Executive “has shown considerable indifference in terms of investigating and punishing those responsible for the 49 deaths that occurred in the context of the mobilizations.” The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded months ago that “they could constitute extrajudicial executions” and qualify as massacres.
The inter-American organization reported that it will closely follow the development of events in Lima. He also recalled “the recommendations of his latest report”, highly critical of the Peruvian authorities, and called on the State to “observe inter-American standards on protest and human rights and open channels of dialogue.”
waving ghosts
The Provisional Government nevertheless decided to tour the way of bullying. Both Boluarte and his ministerial team and the military, the president’s main supporter, according to different analysts, have insisted on associating the protests with the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, almost completely disbanded three decades ago and with some remnants in rural areas. The term “terruco” proliferates in the mouths of officials.
Beyond the agitation of these ghosts, the post-pandemic Peru explains several of the reasons for the collective malaise. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has revealed that one in three Peruvians are in a situation of food insecurity. It is about 16.6 million people. 90% of the inhabitants of the populous Lima periphery do not know if they will eat the next day.
They investigate Boluarte
In this context, the prosecutor Miguel Ángel Puicón Yaipén requested that an expertise be carried out on ‘The recognition of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law’, a book written by Boluarte and which, according to a complaint, has been plagiarized in a 55% of its content. “It never had the intention of being a book as maliciously said. And proof of this that it was not published, it was not marketed and it was not offered to the public,” the president defended herself.
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