"Did Washington Boost Another South American Coup?”, January 20, 2023, Eve Ottenberg, CounterPunch, 1,275 words of text, at < https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/20/did-washington-boost-another-south-american-coup/print >
“Ongoing Protests Demand Resignation of Peru’s President”, January 20, 2023, anon, teleSUR English, 296 words of text, at <https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ongoing-Protests-Demand-Resignation-of-Perus-President-20230120-0014.html>
“Thousands of Outraged Peruvians Continue to Arrive in Lima”, January 19, 2023, anon, teleSUR English, 355 words of text, at <https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Thousands-of-Outraged-Peruvians-Continue-to-Arrive-in-Lima-20230119-0012.html>
“Despite tear gas, Peru protesters vow to keep demonstrating”, By DANIEL POLITI and FRANKLIN BRICEÑO, Associated Press, Posted at The News & Observer, Updated January 21, 2023 2:33 AM, 910 words of text,
at < https://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article271411142.html >
“Thousands march on Peru's capital as unrest spreads, building set ablaze: Police estimated the march at around 3,500, but others speculated it attracted more than double that”, Posted at BD News24(dot)com, Originally from Reuters, Published: 19 Jan 2023, 710 words of text, at < https://bdnews24.com/world/americas/0szpnwcvq4 >
“Thousands of demonstrators from across Peru march ‘to take Lima’ ”, 17 January 2023, Andrea Lobo, World Socialist Web Site, 1,650 words of text, at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/18/bfug-j18.html >.
Introduction by dmorista:
The massive wave of strikes, and the intense and ongoing socioeconomic and political struggle that have been going on in Peru since the December 7, 2022 coup against President Castillo, are being somewhat overshadowed; by the ongoing U.S. / NATO proxy war against Russia / China in Ukraine. But make no mistake the ongoing situation in Peru is of critical importance to the U.S. Imperialist ruling class.
Six short articles are included in this post. The two longest being the WSWS article at 1,650 words and the CounterPunch article at 1,275 words. These two articles offer the largest amount of serious analysis, of the six articles posted here, attempting to explain what these events in Peru mean. The WSWS article is typical of their line of thinking, in that they point out many moves by leftist figures or organizations to mollify the forces of the Peruvian far-right and they also criticize Castillo for not being a true enough left-wing political figure. The CounterPunch article does a particularly good job of discussing the role of right-wing collaborators and politicians in Latin AMerica. They have been trained for decades to act violently and harshly to maintain control over their populations.
The other four articles are mostly much shorter news bulletins, noting some of the events that had taken place. They amount to the following: the first teleSUR article at 296 words, and the second teleSUR article at 355 words. The two teleSUR articles have a total of 3 short videos showing Peruvians, mostly from the indigenous population. The News and Observer / AP article contains 910 words of text, and the bdNews24 / Reuters article has 710 words.
“Did Washington Boost Another South American Coup?”, January 20, 2023, Eve Ottenberg, CounterPunch, at < https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/20/did-washington-boost-another-south-american-coup/print >
(Caption: Photograph Source: Braian Reyna Guerrero – CC BY 2.0)
The U.S. tyranny of monopoly capital has long preferred to deal with fascist governments abroad, specifically in the Global South. American oligarchs’ foreign fascist sycophants are so much more malleable than democratic representatives; they don’t even have to be told what to do because they know. It’s in their DNA. From murdering peasants to tossing leftists out of helicopters during flight, to privatizing anything in the public domain to stuffing their offshore bank accounts with cash, to financing death squads to doing the bidding, whatever it may be, of Washington bigwigs, foreign fascists all read from the same script, and nowhere is their chorus more uniform than in Latin America. That’s because despite the southern continent’s repeated and determined lurch toward socialism over the past century, the U.S. has intervened with coups so often that by now Latino fascists have loads of experience. They know exactly what to do.
And of course it’s elementary that what to do does not include a basic income, state-subsidized housing, medical care and education, improving basic infrastructure, including mass transit, providing food to the poor, putting the military on a funding diet or exiting the extractivist and cash crop economic model imposed by those financial totalitarians, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. All such moves smack of communism, of staving off destitution for the already impoverished, of concern for public welfare rather than private profit. And Latino fascists know that will never do, just as they know that unions, students, liberation theologians and left intellectuals are their natural enemies.
So when news came December 7 of the overthrow of Peru’s Marxist, trade unionist, school-teacher president, Pedro Castillo, any onlooker could be forgiven for wondering about having seen this show before, in the very recent past – like Bolivia in 2019 and Honduras in 2009. The first thing the coup plotters did was begin shooting Indigenous protestors (and they haven’t stopped since), as exactly happened in Bolivia. Then, less publicly, but just as tellingly, they received assurances of support from the Biden administration, because of course it’s the political inheritance of the Obama/Biden gang to support fascist coups in Latin America, as the Hillary Clinton state department did in Honduras, wreaking colossal havoc and propelling thousands of Hondurans to Texas, and just as Obama’s team backed Brazil’s Carwash lawfare, which removed the legally elected Workers’ Party president Dilma Rousseff and ended with a falsely convicted Lula da Silva in jail. Which wasn’t too different from Team Trump’s enthusiasm for the Bolivian fascists who gunned down Indigenous protestors promptly after seizing power and ridding U.S. elites of that obstreperous socialist, Evo Morales. Washington likes to portray its puppets, these rightist criminals, as sober, reliable rulers (though it’s about as likely to find a meritorious fascist as it is to meet a trustworthy pickpocket).
According to the U.S. press, Castillo rebelled against the government, when in fact it’s the other way around, with the sort of lawfare coup that toppled Rouseff’s Brazilian presidency. On December 7, Castillo faced congressional impeachment and tried to dissolve the legislature, which Peruvian media, government and judiciary elites instantly raced to call a coup, though the military did not support him. U.S. media adopted this slant at once, or rather, screamed it from the rooftops. Indeed, by mid-January the New York Times was smugly and so authoritatively informing its readers that any attempt to restore Castillo to his elected presidency was a “nonstarter.” U.S. media uniformly approves this view. The unstated government attitude is phew, one socialist down, only a few more to go, something rather obliquely reflected in the press.
Throughout this saga, from the beginning of Castillo’s term in July 2021, it didn’t help that the president is left-wing, while the congress that overthrew him is right-wing, or that far-right legislators rocked his government, obviously intending to crash it to the ground, since it started. So the right talks about a “self coup” on Castillo’s part, when in truth, it was the right that overthrew him. Then the protests began.
On December 15, multitudes of protestors, demanding freedom and reinstatement for Castillo, took to the streets of Ayacucho and the army immediately shot and killed ten of them and injured dozens more. By December 27, curfews had expired, but a national state of emergency was still in place. “Defying the repression,” writes Andrea Lobo for the World Socialist Website that day, “and despite Congress’s approval of a bill promising new elections in April 2024, demonstrations have continued in Lima, Cusco and across Southern Peru against the December 7 coup and demanding the resignation of [hastily installed president, Dina] Boluarte. As of December 22…at least 27 demonstrators…have been killed and 367 more have been hospitalized.” The military shot these protestors.
“In recent days,” Lobo writes, “the regime launched a series of legal cases against student leaders and raids against universities, the Peasant Confederation of Peru and the pseudo-left New Party.” So repression is in full swing. In fact, on January 9, soldiers shot and killed another 17 protestors in the town of Juliaca. On January 15, the Boluarte regime instituted another state of emergency across southern Peru. On the same day it also emerged that the coup regime ordered soldiers to raid leftists’ homes and search for books by Marx, Lenin and other such authors. Such discoveries are then used against those arrested. The junta is charging protestors with terrorism. As journalist Ben Norton noted on twitter: “Peru’s U.S.-backed coup regime is now bringing back the tactics of the fascist Fujimori dictatorship.” Surprise, surprise.
Meanwhile, as aforementioned, Washington supported the coup. U.S. ambassador Lisa Kenna, a former Trump administration secretary and a CIA employee for nine years, and the military attache to the U.S. embassy, Mariano Alvarado, were in contact with the Peruvian high command. Indeed, Kenna met with Peru’s defense secretary Gustavo Bobbio the day before Castillo’s overthrow and arrest, while Alvarado, according to the Mexican daily La Jornada, coordinated the coup with the military. According to the World Socialist Website, “Boluarte’s regime is controlled by figures from military backgrounds and with clear ties to Washington.”
This means one thing: leftist governments from Brazil to Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba take note – the Exceptional Empire is coming for you. Leaders of those countries better watch their backs. The Biden regime may be averse to outright fascists like Bolsonaro and Trump, but that doesn’t not mean it is a reliable ally for leftists or socialists. On the contrary, to judge from the Peruvian caper, it will foment coups to reinstall neoliberal cabals, even at the risk – as in Lima – of empowering fascists, though it prefers of course to do so BEFORE any leftist comes to power, to sideline such politicos, as happened in Ecuador in 2021, when a right-wing banker eked out a win over a left candidate, to immense U.S. relief, and undoubtedly with carefully concealed U.S. help. Smart leftwing leaders will rely exclusively on each other and themselves, not Washington liberals only too eager to bring back military juntas to promote their business interests. Such leaders would also be wise to expel all fascists from government, especially from the military, the traditional menace par excellence to democratically elected socialists. Chile’s former president Salvador Allende comes to mind in this connection.
Dating back well over a century, U.S. regime change operations have ravaged the Southern Hemisphere. U.S. coups are ongoing. In fact, they never stopped. Even as you read this, doubtless in the bowels of the Washington security state, anonymous bureaucrats further and promote other plots against leftist Latino leaders. The Empire never sleeps.
“Ongoing Protests Demand Resignation of Peru’s President”, January 20, 2023, anon, teleSUR English, at <https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ongoing-Protests-Demand-Resignation-of-Perus-President-20230120-0014.html>
Delegations from different regions have gathered in Lima's Plaza Dos de Mayo to join the march.
The mobilizations continue this Friday in Peru to demand the resignation of the president-elect, Dina Boluarte, as part of the second day of the March of the Four Own, also demanding the closure of Congress, new general elections and a Constituent Assembly.
In the capital, Lima, the delegations that arrived in the city from different regions of the country resumed the march to continue expressing their rejection of Boluarte's government.
According to teleSUR contributor Jaime Herrera, people from Puno, Cusco, Ayacucho, and Apurimac, among others, gathered in the Plaza Dos de Mayo in downtown Lima to march from there.
(Go to the teleSUR English website for this article to watch this video)
The day before, demonstrators had denounced the violent repression by the security forces of the march, which had moved peacefully through the streets of the capital and other towns.
In the region of Puno, a significant mobilization took place in support of the demands for justice and reparation for the victims of the violent repression of the demonstrations by the security forces.
In the region of Tacna, sectors of the population joined the national strike with peaceful demonstrations, carrying placards with different messages, including "The bloodshed will never be forgotten."
There were also events in other towns in the region to pay tribute to those who died due to the police and military repression of the anti-government and anti-congress protests.
Protests against the Peruvian government had intensified since December 7 last year, when Congress dismissed Pedro Castillo and swore in Boluarte as the new president.
According to the Peruvian Ombudsman's office, the security forces' repression of the demonstrations has left at least 50 people dead and hundreds injured.
“Thousands of Outraged Peruvians Continue to Arrive in Lima”, January 19, 2023, anon, teleSUR English, at
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Thousands-of-Outraged-Peruvians-Continue-to-Arrive-in-Lima-20230119-0012.html>
"The protesters, who mostly come from the poorer regions, vent their anger against Lima's political elite," Reuters reported.
Despite the obstacles that the Peruvian security forces have tried to set, thousands of workers, farmers, and students from various regions of the country continue to arrive in Lima.
Outraged by a State terrorism that has left at least 52 dead, they will join the "March of the Four Nations," which demands the resignation of Dina Boluarte, whom Congress appointed as president on Dec.7, 2022.
"Her administration has more deaths than days in power," is what people repeat in protests, as they also demand the closure of Congress and early general elections in 2023.
"The Peruvian political establishment is corrupt and classist. They do not accept elections in 2023 because mining concessions expire this year and there is a lot of money at stake in commissions," explained Fidias Roldan, a Latin American intellectual.
"The clashes mark the worst violence Peru has seen in over two decades," the Reuters agency reported from this South American country.
(Go to the teleSUR English website for this article to watch this video)
The tweet reads, "At this time protesters are marching through the streets of Andahuaylas. Some are preparing to travel to Lima to join the strike."
"The protesters, who mostly come from the poorer regions, vent their anger against Lima's political elite," it added, commenting that this copper-rich country's democracy is currently being put to the test.
Meanwhile, the head of the Lima Police Region, Victor Zanabria, reported that 11,800 agents will take to the streets to "guard" the popular mobilizations, which will have San Martin Square as their epicenter and are expected to go through the main avenues.
On Wednesday, snipers fired at citizens who were protesting in Macusani city, in the Puno region, where a 35-year-old woman died from a gunshot wound to the head.
A few hours later, the Ombudsman's Office informed that Salomon Valenzuela also died. This citizen was also shot in what people are beginning to call the "Macusani massacre."
(Go to the teleSUR English website for this article to watch this video)
“Despite tear gas, Peru protesters vow to keep demonstrating”, By DANIEL POLITI and FRANKLIN BRICEÑO, Associated Press, Posted at The News & Observer, Updated January 21, 2023 2:33 AM,
at < https://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article271411142.html >
{Caption: An anti-government protesters (sic) who traveled to the capital from across the country to march against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, is detained by the police during clashes in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. Protesters are seeking immediate elections, Boluarte's resignation, the release of ousted President Pedro Castillo and justice for up to 48 protesters killed in clashes with police. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) AP}
LIMA, Peru
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Peru’s capital Friday and were met with volleys of tear gas for the second straight day, as demonstrators made clear they will keep up their mobilizations to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.
Many of the protesters in Lima had arrived from remote Andean regions, where dozens have died amid unrest that has engulfed large portions of the country since Pedro Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was impeached and imprisoned after he tried to dissolve Congress last month.
“Dina, resign already! What is that you want with our Peru?” said José Luis Ayma Cuentas, 29, who traveled about 20 hours to get to the country’s capital from the southern Puno region, which has been the site of the deadliest state violence over the past month. “We’re staying until she resigns, until the dissolution of Congress, until there are new elections, otherwise we aren’t going anywhere.”
An anti-government protesters who traveled to the capital from across the country to march against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, is detained by the police during clashes in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. Protesters are seeking immediate elections, Boluarte's resignation, the release of ousted President Pedro Castillo and justice for up to 48 protesters killed in clashes with police. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) AP
Until recently, the protests had been mainly in Peru’s southern region, with a total of 55 people killed and 700 injured in the unrest, largely in clashes with security forces.
Protesters now want Lima, home to around one-third of Peru’s population of 34 million, to be the focal point of the demonstrations that began when Boluarte, who was then vice president, was sworn into office on Dec. 7 to replace Castillo. The protests sparked the worst political violence in the country has seen in more than two decades.
At the beginning of the Friday’s protests, the demonstrators seemed more organized than the previous day and they took over key roads in downtown Lima waving flags while chanting, “The spilled blood will never ben forgotten,” “The people don’t give up,” and other slogans.
Police appeared more combative than the day before and after standing watch over protesters that had been blocked into downtown streets they started firing volleys of tear gas.
The firing of tear gas also appeared more indiscriminate. A group of protesters who were sitting in a plaza in front of the Supreme Court without causing a disturbance suddenly had to start running as approaching police fired round after round of tear gas that filled the area with smoke and a pungent smell permeated the air.
“I’m indignant, furious,” said Maddai Pardo Quintana, 48, as she offered water mixed with baking soda to protesters to flush their eyes from the tear gas. “They want us to respect them but if they led by example and respected us, we’d also respect them more.”
Pardo came to Lima to protest against Boluarte from the central province of Chanchamayo and vowed to stay in the capital until the president agrees to resign.
Anger at law enforcement was a constant throughout the march as demonstrators yelled “murderers” when they passed rows of police officers wearing helmets and holding up shields.
A few blocks away, Doris Pacori, 56, stood between police officers and protesters who had been blocked from reaching Congress.
“They are servants of the corrupt, cowards with them but abusive with the people,” Pacori, who held a sign that read, “Dina murderer.”
As night fell, protesters got locked into running battles with police while some demonstrators threw water bottles filled with rocks at officers.
Late Friday, Interior Minister Vicente Romero praised police action during the protests, saying that it “has been very professional.”
Protesters were particularly angry at Boluarte for a defiant speech she gave Thursday night in which she accused protesters of fomenting violence, vowed to prosecute demonstrators and questioned where they received their financing.
“You want to break the rule of law, you want to generate chaos so that within that chaos and confusion you take power,” Boluarte said Thursday night.
“The lady is very cold, she has no feelings, no compassion for other people,” Pardo said.
Boluarte has said she supports a plan to hold fresh elections in 2024, two years ahead of schedule, but protesters unanimously say that isn’t fast enough, particularly considering all the deaths in recent weeks.
Protests and clashes with law enforcement also took place in other parts of the country.
In Arequipa, Peru’s second city, police clashed with protesters that tried to storm the airport.
Also in southern Peru, multinational firm Glencore decided to temporary shut down its Antapaccay copper mine after protesters attacked the site.
Castillo, a political novice who lived in a two-story adobe home in the Andean highlands, eked out a narrow victory in elections in 2021 that rocked Peru’s political establishment and laid bare the deep divisions between residents of the capital and the long-neglected countryside.
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 1:04 AM.
“Thousands march on Peru's capital as unrest spreads, building set ablaze: Police estimated the march at around 3,500, but others speculated it attracted more than double that”, Posted at BD News24(dot)com, Originally from Reuters, Published: 19 Jan 2023, at < https://bdnews24.com/world/americas/0szpnwcvq4 >
Thousands of protesters in Peru, many from the country's heavily indigenous south, descended on Lima, the capital, on Thursday, angered by a mounting death toll since unrest erupted last month and calling for sweeping change.
Police estimated the march at around 3,500, but others speculated it attracted more than double that.
Rows of police in riot gear faced off against rock-hurling protesters on some streets, and one historic building in the city's historic center caught on fire late on Thursday.
The building, on San Martin Plaza, was empty when the massive blaze ignited from unknown causes, a firefighter commander told local radio.
Over the past month, raucous and sometimes deadly protests have led to the worst violence Peru has seen in over two decades as many in poorer, rural regions vent anger at the Lima establishment over inequality and rising prices, testing the copper-rich Andean nation's democratic institutions.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, snap elections and a new constitution to replace the market-friendly one dating back to right-wing strongman Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s.
"We want the usurper Dina Boluarte to step down and call for new elections," said protester Jose De la Rosa, predicting the street protests will only continue.
The protests have been sparked by the dramatic Dec 7 ouster of leftist former President Pedro Castillo after he tried to illegally shutter Congress and consolidate power.
(Caption: Protesters scuffle with riot police officers during the 'Take over Lima' march to demonstrate against Peru's President Dina Boluarte, following the ousting and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo, in Lima, Peru January 19, 2023. REUTERS)
In buses and on foot, thousands journeyed to Lima on Thursday, carrying flags and banners blasting the government and police for deadly clashes in the southern cities of Ayacucho and Juliaca.
The unrest spread far beyond the capital.
In southern Arequipa, police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters who tried to take over the airport, local television showed, leading officials to announce the suspension of operations at the Arequipa and Cusco airports.
The mounting death toll stands at 45, according to the government ombudsman, with the latest victim on Thursday coming from southern Puno region, a woman who succumbed to injuries from a day earlier. Another nine deaths are attributed to accidents related to protest blockades.
STATE OF EMERGENCY
Across the nation, roadway blockades were seen in 18 of the country's 25 regions, according to transport officials, underscoring the reach of the protests.
Police had increased surveillance of roads entering Lima and political leaders called for calm.
Last week, the embattled Boluarte government extended a state of emergency in Lima and the southern regions of Puno and Cusco, curtailing some civil rights.
"We do not want more deaths, we do not want more injuries, enough blood, enough mourning for the families of Peru," Interior Minister Vicente Romero told reporters.
Boluarte has asked for "forgiveness" for the protest deaths, even as protester banners label her a "murderer" and call the killings by security forces "massacres." She has dismissed calls to resign.
Human rights groups have accused the police and army of using deadly firearms in the protests. The police say the protesters have used weapons and homemade explosives.
"We won't forget the pain the police have caused in the town of Juliaca," said one protester traveling to Lima, who did not give her name. She referred to the city where an especially deadly protest took place earlier this month. "We women, men, children have to fight."
(Caption: Police use tear gas during the 'Take over Lima' march to demonstrate against Peru's President Dina Boluarte, following the ousting and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo, in Lima, Peru January 19, 2023. REUTERS)
Other protesters pointed to strategic reasons for targeting the coastal capital.
"We want to centralize our movement here in Lima, which is the heart of Peru, to see if they are moved," said protester Domingo Cueva, who had traveled from Cusco.
"We have observed an increase in repressions everywhere," he added.
“Thousands of demonstrators from across Peru march ‘to take Lima’ ”, 17 January 2023, Andrea Lobo, World Socialist Web Site, at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/18/bfug-j18.html >.
Protests in Peru have escalated continuously in tandem with the murderous repression unleashed by the US-backed Dina Boluarte regime. Demonstrations, strikes and roadblocks have led to calls and preparations for a “march to take Lima,” the country’s capital.
Demonstrations rapidly expanded in the southern Puno region in the Andes, whose population is predominantly Quechua and Aymara-speaking. Puno is also one of the poorest regions in the country, with nearly half of the population living under the official poverty line.
On January 9, in response to the blocking of all roads to Juliaca, the region’s main commercial center, the police used live ammunition against demonstrators, killing at least 18.
The ashes of a policeman and his vehicle were found the following morning in the city, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths in the protests to 49. At least 41 demonstrators have been killed and about 600 have been wounded by gunfire.
The Juliaca massacre has unleashed an escalation of the protests, which erupted one month ago in response to the December 7 coup against President Pedro Castillo. Protesters have demanded the resignation of Boluarte and the Congress, immediate general elections and a constituent assembly.
Last week, roadblocks gradually spread from the southernmost Puno region to the rest of the country, including important economic chokepoints at the Bolivian border in Puno and the Chilean border in Tacna, as well as the northern Amazonian region.
Despite violent efforts by security forces to reopen the roads, gas and food shortages have already been reported in the southeast, while inter-provincial and local public transportation has shut down in Arequipa, Puno and other parts of southern Peru.
Flowing from the logic of the struggle, protesters are increasingly targeting the economic and political centers of the country, and an “indefinite strike” has been called, arising out of the impromptu discussions in plazas, community halls and the roadblocks themselves. Local mayors, other political officials and leaders of trade unions have been compelled to go along for now, while attempting to raise the prospect for dialogue with the regime.
The national leadership of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) was further discredited for acknowledging Boluarte after the coup and holding talks with her. The bureaucracy, which is nothing but an appendage of the corporations, has since sought to distance itself from Boluarte.
In an interview with Reuters, José Luis Chapa, secretary of the Arequipa Workers Federation, suggested that the government needs to convoke elections this year “if it wants dialogue.”
While demanding his liberation from prison, nowhere are demonstrators even raising the restoring of Castillo to the presidency. His record as another bourgeois politician subordinated to the oligarchy and the mining corporations, including his deployment of troops against demonstrators, is undebatable. Nonetheless, local leaders of so-called Defense Fronts and the pseudo-left in Peru and internationally have sought to exploit the anger and political confusion to again promote illusions in Castillo.
Most recently, demonstrators in the towns and the indigenous Aymara and Quechua communities in the south have called for a march to “take Lima” and forcibly oust Boluarte and Congress. Since Sunday, thousands have joined caravans from across the country and are heading to the capital, as the police and military seek to intercept them with checkpoints.
Demonstrators north and south of Lima have also established roadblocks along the Pan-American highway, but have not so far tried to systematically surround the city.
Local indigenous leaders have called the caravans the “March of the Four Corners,” which was the name of mass demonstrations in Lima in the year 2000 against the authoritarian regime of Alberto Fujimori. While triggered by electoral fraud that year, social anger had accumulated against Fujimori over the privatization of the mines and other public enterprises, social cuts and his use of massacres to suppress social opposition.
The present eruption in Peru is driven by rampant social inequality and hostility to the ruling oligarchy and the mining corporations. Alongside a growing number of dollar billionaires and some of the largest mineral deposits in the world, 51 percent of the population suffers from food insecurity, according to the UN.
“They want to sell us to the transnational corporations. We will not allow this. We are fighting for our children and grandchildren,” a caravan participant in Arequipa told Telesur.
Production in the key mining region around Arequipa, an epicenter of the protests, has already seen disruptions. Last week, the road to Cerro Verde, the largest copper mine in the country, owned by US-based Freeport, was blocked at intervals.
On Thursday, Swiss-based Glencore said that it had evacuated its Antapaccay copper mine, the fifth largest in the country, after demonstrators invaded it and set fire to two vehicles. Communities near the Las Bambas mine, the third largest, have threatened to disrupt its activities.
Fearing an offensive against the mines, most of which are located in some of the poorest regions of the country, like Cajamarca, Apurímac, Piura, Cusco, Junín and La Libertad, the companies are calling for a harsher crackdown.
The National Association of Mining, Oil and Energy (SNMPE) released a statement last Friday ranting about “blackmail and anarchy” and an “escalation of vandalism and terror that has forced Peru to mourn.” The employer group demanded a return of the “rule of law, the principle of authority and rules, in an environment of social peace,” as well as an end to the “impunity under which the violent groups operate.”
Behind these hysterical calls for repression lies the high demand for metals and minerals, intensified by supply chain disruptions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia, and labor shortages. Peru is the second-largest producer of copper, and a major producer of key minerals like silver, gold, zinc, lead and tin.
Responding to these demands, the Boluarte regime extended the state of emergency for another month in the departments of Lima, Cusco, Callao and Puno, suspending democratic rights and authorizing military repression.
The corporate media and the ultra-right Fujimoristas in Congress and the state apparatus, who are dictating the policies of the regime, have ramped up their denunciations of demonstrators as “terrorists,” “communists,” and minions of Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales, whose entry into the country was denied. Without presenting any evidence, Boluarte and the far right have claimed that Morales is helping funnel weapons to demonstrators and fomenting “separatism.”
Hundreds of arrests of alleged leaders of the protests and raids of local organizations have taken place on the basis of these fraudulent accusations. Books of Marx, Lenin and Mao have been cited as “proof” of ties to terrorism.
In reality, the protests remain largely uncoordinated and leaderless. As reported recently by La Jornada, Boluarte’s former intelligence chief, General Wilson Barrantes Mendoza, said that “the intelligence agencies never identified any party or Senderista [Maoist guerrilla] movement or any central organization that was coordinating the demonstrations.” There are also no indications that demonstrators anywhere have been armed.
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