Since Pedro Castillo dissolved Parliament in Peru on 7 December and tried to call constitutional elections, dozens of deaths in protests. After the Christmas break, the mobilizations have risen in the Puno, next to Lake Titicaca, but have spread to more regions such as Cusco or the capital of Lima.

In the city of Juliaca, seventeen people were killed by police last week and Cuscon Remo Candia, rural leader Guevara, has been shot dead. Since then, tension has been growing and citizens have more than a hundred roads blocked. Mass demonstrations are being announced in Lima, as the people of the regions have organized excursions to the capital. The CGT trade union, one of the most important in Peru, has called for a general strike this Thursday.

Following the removal and imprisonment of the Castle, Dina Boluarte, who replaced him, and his executive, have established an emergency situation from 15 January, for at least one month. The emergency has been implemented in the regions of Puno, Cuzco, Callao and Lima, as well as in other provinces of the South and areas of the Pan-American highway.

In these places the army can intervene and certain rights offered by the current Peruvian constitution have been suspended.

Shots to the head and chest

At least 50 people have already died in the protests, most of them after being attacked by the police. The media has received many testimonies and documents of human rights violations committed by the agents. Thus, reports of the necropsies of ten young people killed in Ayacucho indicate that with firearms they died as a result of the shots received on the chest and head.

The media says the use of force is being totally disproportionate: the security forces have launched the gas of crying from helicopters and the police have accessed private homes to attack protesters from the buildings.

He has also received testimonies of ill-treatment of detainees, reported that they have been beaten in police stations and given no food for many days.

The anger of helmets and aimas

Protesters call for the dissolution of the Peruvian Congress and for constitutional elections to be convened in 2023 (the current constitution was approved in 1993, when Alberto Fujimori ruled). They also call for the freedom of former President Pedro Castillo.

The Aimara and the clergy have gained strength in the southern regions in particular, and in the poorest and most exploited regions of Peru, where most mines are located. In fact, Castillo won a large part of his votes in favour in these regions in June 2021 to win the presidency over Keiko Fujimori.

During this year and a half, however, the opposition through Parliament has resisted Castillo, who has to give up his electoral promises, and many analysts consider that the indigenous people feel this attitude of the political and economic elites of Lima as a racist attack on them.