At least 47 people have been killed during demonstrations since the dismissal of President Pedro Castillo. His vice-president, which has become a head of the state, appears outdated. An investigation against him was opened by the prosecution.
by Amanda Chaparro (Cuzco (Peru), correspondence)
In her blue blouse, an exhausted air, a nurse has been receiving injuries for several hours in the health center. “We are shooting, she lets go, to the limit. What does Boluarte want? What more do they want? They have already killed so many people …” In the streets of Juliaca, in the region of Puno (South), This Monday, January 9, calls for help are increasing. A gentleman, haggard, asks in front of a camera of the help for the funeral of his son, who has just died in the hospital.
More than 1,000 kilometers away, in Lima, the capital, President Dina Boluarte remains impassive, deaf to the dismay and the demands of the demonstrators. The latter protested on the street since the dismissal of President Pedro Castillo, on December 7, following his attempted coup, and claimed the resignation of the state head and the immediate organization of new elections. “I do not understand, what do they want?” Asks me boluarte in front of the cameras, while the news of a first deadly victim in Juliaca reaches him. The president was then in the midst of a dialogue meeting with different political forces, supposed to find a way out of the crisis. “What they [the protesters] ask is a pretext for generating chaos,” she says.
In the following hours, it is a bloodbath that will occur in Juliaca, epicenter of demonstrations since their recovery after the truce of Christmas: at least 17 dead and 70 injured, this January 9. In videos widely broadcast on social networks, helicopters fly over the city and drop tear gas bombs. On the ground, the police shoot the demonstrators. According to medical reports, they have targeted the head or body. Some victims are affected in the back. Among the deceased, a 31 -year -old medical student who resigned the injured. A teenage girl too, 17 years old.
a lima, the government justifies its repressive line and denies any exaction. Prime Minister Alberto Otarola deals with “hordes of delinquents” demonstrators. Measures will be taken, he announces, to counter the social mobilization presented as an attempt at “coup” which would be “financed by drug trafficking” or by “external interests”. The former Bolivian president Evo Morales is prohibited from entering the territory, accused of carrying out proselyte activities against the Peruvian government.
M me boluarte, who owes her power only to the dismissal of Mr. Castillo, of which she was the vice-president, appears outdated, disconnected from the population, sometimes inconsistent. Advocate of training unknown to the general public before making career in the public service, she had no political experience before the election of Mr. Castillo in June 2021. Analysts point to the improvisation that reigns in her government.
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