[Story & photos by Manuel Orbegozo]
LIMA, Peru—In contemporary Peruvian politics, everything seems to be ephemeral. In four years, Peru has had six presidents; 78 ministers in the last year and a half; two failed coups since 2020. The most recent took place on Dec. 7, 2022, and lasted just under two hours, ending with the dramatic arrest of discredited teacher, union leader and former president Pedro Castillo Terrones.
It was a self-coup with autocratic overtones comparable to that of former president Alberto Fujimori in 1992, at the height of the armed conflict with the Maoist group Shining Path. On that April 5, Fujimori announced the dissolution of Congress to form a government of exception, just as Castillo did 30 years later. The objective then was to control all branches of government with the excuse of being able to carry out reforms to recover the country from the economic crisis and simultaneously fight against the Shining Path.
Although this measure guaranteed Fujimori’s permanence in power for almost a decade, during which the country experienced corruption, human rights violations and a degradation of public institutions and the press, both he and Castillo became dictators by breaking the constitutional order. What made them different? At the time of his self-coup, Fujimori had the support of the Armed Forces, while Castillo did not, or at least learned that he did not shortly after announcing his.
Even the shock of some Peruvians, who once again felt the uncertainty of other darker times, was short-lived: the same afternoon that Castillo was arrested, a new president was sworn in. But the indignation of a part of the country, historically rural and peasant, long ignored before any contemporary crisis and which had voted for Castillo, was the only cry that remained standing.
An express coup and ousting
In July 2021, the leftist Castillo, a native of Peru’s northern highlands, assumed the presidency amid accusations of electoral fraud by the ultra-right led by the party of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the former president who had just lost her third candidacy. Castillo’s inauguration, on the bicentennial of the country’s independence, was symbolic for Peru’s rural population, which has long felt its vote and its demands underrepresented in politics. The inauguration also officially marked the beginning of congressional efforts to unseat him.
During Castillo’s year and six months in office, he faced constitutional charges of running a criminal organization, influence peddling and collusion. He was accused of controlling state contracting processes for illicit gain and of nepotism. As more political allies distanced themselves from Castillo and his ministers resigned one after another, more reports revealed political scandals and controversial information exposing his lack of experience. His first impeachment for moral incompetence came in his fourth month in office. Although he did not get enough votes, a second impeachment trial followed shortly thereafter, which was also unsuccessful.
Hours before Congress was to debate the third vacancy motion scheduled for the afternoon of December 8, Castillo gave a televised message to the nation announcing the temporary shutdown of Congress. His nervousness was evident, the papers he was holding trembled repeatedly as he mispronounced some words of his pre-written speech. Shortly after, the Constitutional Court and the Armed Forces publicly rejected his move, calling it unconstitutional, and Castillo was filmed leaving the Government Palace with his family and his former prime minister, Anibal Torres, on his way to the Mexican embassy.
Castillo would not get that far: on an avenue in downtown Lima, the car he was traveling in was intercepted by the authorities and he was arrested by his own bodyguard for the alleged crime of rebellion for breaking the constitutional order. A few hours later, Dina Boluarte, vice minister during his administration and a Quechua-speaking Peruvian from the Andes, became the first woman to assume the presidency of Peru. Meanwhile, Castillo received 18 months of pre-trial detention.
The Andes under fire
A series of bloody protests following his ouster intensified the political crisis in different parts of the country. Castillo’s supporters demanded his reinstatement, the constituent assembly he had promised since his election campaign, and an end to police violence. Boluarte responded by instituting a state of emergency, which meant the loss of certain social liberties, a curfew and the intervention of the armed forces in protests. The country was entering the worst period of social unrest in recent years.
In the southern regions of Apurimac, Ayacucho and Arequipa, thousands of demonstrators suffered violent repression by the police and armed forces. Road blockades, the burning of police stations and prosecutor’s offices, and attempts to take over airports resulted in at least 28 deaths, many of them from firearms projectiles, and hundreds of wounded. In Ayacucho alone, a flagship city of the independence struggle in the 19th century and the most affected by the internal armed conflict, nine people were killed. One of them was shot while trying to help a fallen demonstrator. He had not participated in the protests and surveillance video shows him kneeling in front of his own house at the time of the deadly shooting.
Boluarte appealed for calm to her “sisters and brothers” and reaffirmed her commitment to social peace by stating that she had instructed the police not to use lethal weapons against the protesters. Some Lima politicians and civilians began to label the demonstrators as “terrucos,” an epithet commonly used by the right wing to discredit and demonize people of leftist or progressive affinity who challenge the status quo, linking them to the terrorist activities of the Shining Path.
However, according to a survey by the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP), 71 percent of the population does not agree with Boluarte assuming the presidency and 83 percent believe that there should be early elections. Although Boluarte announced elections for 2024, two years before the end of Castillo’s term, the majority of protesters demand that they be held in 2023. The National Jury of Elections stated that it is possible to have early elections in December 2023 in order to contribute to the reestablishment of social peace.
14 deaths in one day
Despite the holiday’s pause, protests resumed in the first days of January. In Juliaca, Puno, on the border with Bolivia, thousands of Aymara indigenous people began their demonstration against police repression that left several people injured in the region in recent days, reaching its peak of violence on Monday Jan. 9. On that day alone 17 people died in Juliaca, all from gunshot wounds according to the authorities. Hundreds of people suffered from aerial attacks by security forces, who launched tear gas bombs from helicopters, while other agents fired projectiles at the bodies of demonstrators from the ground.
Although most protesters defended themselves with traditional slingshots, stones and sticks, the use of homemade firearms against the police was also reported, while an officer died after being burned alive in a police vehicle that was attacked by protesters. At least 40 people were arrested Monday night following the looting of a supermarket in Juliaca.
Some tourist activities in the south of the country remain paralyzed and protesters have blocked key roads and border crossings with Bolivia and Chile. Economic losses in recent days as a result of the protests amount to 200 million soles (U.S. $52 million), according to the Economy Ministry.
Boluarte said Monday afternoon, Jan. 9, that she doesn’t know why people are protesting. Her comments and those of her primer minister, Alberto Otárola, who blames the deaths on agitators, plus Lima’s continued “terruqueo” could further inflame the situation in the coming hours and widen the historic gap between the capital and rural Peru. Since Boluarte assumed power, at least 45 people have already been killed in protest-related incidents, while none of the proposed reforms so far appear tangible to the protesting population.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the police repression as a massacre against civilians and urged dialogue. The regional government of Puno decreed three days of mourning. A new series of clashes broke out on Wednesday in Cusco that has so far left one dead from a firearm projectile, bringing an escalation of violence that could further overshadow a way out of this political crisis.
Peruvian politics seems more fragile and ephemeral than ever, but of long consequences, of long sorrows. In Peru, the short-lived hurts so much.