Two hundred people were arrested during the intervention of the police at San Marcos University. The site has been hosting protesters for three days claiming the resignation of the Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte.
by Amanda Chaparro (Lima, Special Envoy)
When an armored police vehicle smashed the doors of the campus of its university, the major national university of San Marcos, Saturday January 21 in Lima, Maria (her first name was changed), 17 -year -old student, 17 -year -old student was preparing meals for demonstrators. The latter, from various regions of Peru, in particular of the Andes, have been staying for three days in the faculty. They had come to participate in the big walk summoned Thursday in the capital to request the resignation of Dina Boluarte, the acting president who succeeded Pedro Castillo (left) after her dismissal, December 7, 2022.
Maria then starts to run. Behind her, a column of a hundred men entered, decided to expel the protesters. She hears cries, sees people fall, others get hit. Luckily, she manages to escape by one of the grids. “We were very afraid,” she explains on the phone, still shocked by the brutality of the operation. Police cast tear gas, we heard shots, I saw a peasant woman get hit The head with batons, there was a helicopter who flew over campus. It was completely abusive and disproportionately violence. “
A few moments later, dozens of people are plated on the ground, face down, hands in the back, handcuffed. Most are embarked on the management of the criminal police, in the historic center of Lima. An 8 -year -old mother and daughter are part of it. The demonstrators are held for usurpation and damage of public goods. A smaller group of around thirty people are sent to the management of the anti -terrorist police.
Now, in the university gardens of the “San Marcos”, one of the oldest public universities in South America, a crucible of intellectual debates, lying tents, mattresses and mountains of food than inhabitants of Lima Solidaires of the movement had come to deposit. Near the wall grid, torn banners are on the ground. We decipher the messages written by the students: “The flowing blood will never be forgotten.” Besides, the photos of the faces of the demonstrators who died in the south of the country since the start of the conflict on December 7. They are now at least 46, mostly shot dead by the police and the army.
The violent intervention at San Marcos University testifies to the authoritarian turn taken by the government of Dina Boluarte, who does not hesitate to intimidate, stop and criminalize the protesters and their supporters, with the complicity of the main groups of media from the country. “The goal is to break the morale of the demonstrators and to twist the neck at the protest movement. The government gives them a message: do not come to the capital, you have no place to stay, we will stop you and You continue, “explains Omar Coronel, sociologist of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
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