From Lima
President Pedro Castillo opted for repression against social protests and further complicated his situation. More than eleven million Peruvians woke up this Tuesday with a curfew and under the state of emergency law, which implies that the police can enter homes and make arrests without a court order and eliminates a series of citizen rights. The curfew, announced by Castillo minutes before midnight on Monday, was in effect from two in the morning until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday. However, late Tuesday afternoon, in the face of criticism received from different sectors and protests in the streets against these measures, Castillo announced in Congress the lifting of the curfew. He did not refer to the state of emergency.
State of emergency
Declaring a state of emergency and imposing a curfew was the government’s failed response to social protests against rising prices, mainly fuel and food, which led to violence, roadblocks and some looting. The effect was like throwing gasoline on the fire of social protests.
The acts of violence and looting occurred on Monday in different areas of the interior of the country, but the state of emergency and curfew were decreed for Lima and Callao, a port province that is territorially linked to the Peruvian capital, where no acts of violence occurred. violence. The government justified that decision by assuring that it had intelligence reports indicating that acts of violence and looting were being prepared in the capital for this Tuesday. He did not give details of those alleged reports.
Protests against the Government
Despite the curfew, thousands of people took to the streets on Tuesday. In affluent and middle class neighborhoods there were mobilizations against the government, demanding the resignation of Castillo. The demonstrators reached a block from the Congress, where they were stopped by a police cordon. At that time, Castillo was meeting there with a group of legislators. Shock forces from Fujimori and other groups staged acts of violence and there were clashes between demonstrators and the police. At the end of this Time.news clashes continued.
Until now, the mobilizations to demand Castillo’s resignation promoted by the right-wing coup had been a failure due to their low call, but the declaration of the state of emergency and the curfew became a catalyst that pushed many to join those mobilizations. . In the popular areas of Lima, hard hit by the rise in prices that triggered the protests that have caused this crisis, there were no mobilizations, but indignation grew due to immobility that affected their precarious economies more.
On Tuesday afternoon, Castillo went to Congress with some of his ministers to meet with the board of directors of Parliament and the spokesmen of the different parties. He justified the questionable measures taken by his government by saying that they were to “protect the population.” But minutes later he stepped back and announced that the curfew was lifted “from this moment.” The violence that had taken over the streets of downtown Lima did not subside after this announcement. Fujimorism and the ultra-conservative group Avanza País did not participate in the meeting of congressmen with the president. His exclusive agenda is the parliamentary coup.
“Repress, criminalize and restrict rights”
Former left-wing presidential candidate Veronika Mendoza, an important ally of Castillo, harshly criticized the course taken by the government. “The government has not only betrayed the promises of change for which the people elected it, but now it repeats the method of ‘conflict resolution’ of the right: ignore those who mobilize expressing their legitimate discomfort about the economic and political situation, repress, criminalize and restrict rights. My total rejection of this arbitrary and disproportionate measure”, he pointed out, questioning the state of emergency and the curfew. Legislators from the left outside the official Peru Libre party who have been supporting the regime joined those criticisms.
The right-wing’s questioning of repressive measures that it has previously demanded and applauded to confront social protests, which it has always criminalized and now says it supports, evidenced a double discourse and its interest in using the social crisis and the government’s errors in its response. to this crisis to pay for their destabilizing actions seeking the fall of the government.
Castillo’s image has weakened in popular sectorshas lost support among his left-wing allies and the mobilizations calling for his resignation have brought together a number of protesters that he had not been able to gather before, which leaves him more weakened before the onslaught of the right.