You have to see them, in the vicinity of Cuzco, traveling in trucks, on these winding roads of the Andes, from their provinces. And head for this regional capital (southeast) of Peru, Friday, January 13, hanging from the doors or hanging astride the walls of pitching vehicles. National flags slung over the shoulder, whistles, and at each passing car, horns and these same slogans, towards the interim president: “Boluarte: resign! », « Dina murders! “.
In this mobilization, which has not weakened since the dismissal of President Pedro Castillo on December 7, 2022, they are peasants, young or old, with calloused hands and features marked by work and the cold at altitude. There are women, children, too. They demand immediate elections. “Let Dina go, let them close the Congress, let them all go”, fulminates Julia Tupayupanqui, once on the ground. Maria Condori, an energetic farmer, says in turn: “Dina, you may declare a state of emergency, a curfew, repress in blood, we are not going to be silent. She says she wants peace but how, with so many murdered citizens? » On Saturday, the government declared a state of emergency for thirty days in the capital and several regions, including that of Cuzco.
“The police are shooting at us on the orders of the president”
The country is in mourning. Forty-two demonstrators have been killed since December 7, most of them by firearms. Eight others died on the sidelines of the mobilizations, including a police officer who was burned alive in his vehicle. They were students, workers, street vendors. Fourteen victims were under the age of 22. In Cuzco, a 21-year-old boy is in hospital, between life and death. He received thirty-six projectile impacts. One more testimony to the level of police and military repression. “It could have been my children, gasp, moved and angry, Marco Chavez, fifties, on a picket line. The police are shooting at us on the orders of the president. »
In the city center of Cuzco, a gigantic black and white flag several meters high is dragged at arm’s length through the alleys. The ancient Inca capital, a neat architectural gem, is more accustomed to receiving millions of tourists in transit to Machu Picchu than to seeing this colorful procession unfurl, of peasants in ojotas – the rubber sandals – well dressed in their woolen jackets, bundles on their backs, or these Quechua women with embroidered petticoats and colorful headgear. These workers too, these teachers.
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