Perù Uprising
In Peru,South America’s fourth most populous country, the impeachment and successive incarceration of former president PedroCastillo, was met with great disappointment and rage by the indigenous Andean communities living in the South of the country. Demonstrations sparked in the southern region of Puno with campesinos organising roadblocks and taking over the city center of the main cities, claiming not to rest until President Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s vice-president who replaced him, steps down and calls for new elections (and a new constitution). Despite the protests reached the capital Lima, the Congress has proven to be deaf at people’s requests, angering even more the indigenous populations which media and politicians keep labelling as terrorist and vandals. From Cusco to Juliaca, I traveled to meet this side of Peru that has lost faith in politics, through the lands of the ancient Inca empire. Enraged by decades of corruption, discrimination and inequalities, people here believed in former president Pedro Castillo. Son of illiterate farmers and first president coming from the impoverished countryside, Castillo was perceived attentive to the indigenous people’s need. He was perceived as the only one who could block the renewal of the contracts of extractives projects that brings wealth outside and leave local people in misery. His arrest sparked a wave of revolts across these areas of Peru which were met with brutal police repression. In Juliana, 17 person lost their life only in January 9th. I met and interviewed the relatives of some of the persons. Since the beginning of the uprising, 59 people have died. Yet people have no intention to give up and believe that “El Pueblo Unido Hamas Serà Vencido” (people united will never been defeated).
