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LIMA, Peru — Weeks of anti-government protests in their rural cities and towns hadn’t brought any change in a country they felt had forgotten them. So thousands of Peruvians headed to their nation’s capital to call for a solution to the political crisis that has left more than 50 people dead.
They marched through the streets of Lima on Thursday night to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, the overhaul of a deeply unpopular Congress and the creation of an assembly to draft a new constitution. The demonstration — participants called it a “Lima Takeover” — quickly descended into chaos, as police officers fired tear gas at demonstrators and flames engulfed a building in the historic heart of the capital.
Boluarte has refused to resign. She accused the demonstrators of wreaking violence to “take control of the nation.” Local media described them as “vandals.” But the protesters were back on the streets on Friday, determined to stay, they said, in the capital until the president steps down.
Discontent, death toll rise as Peru’s poor demand change
“We want the murderer to resign,” said Elva Fernández Quisped, 47, who traveled here by bus from Ayacucho, the site of some of the deadliest protests last month. “We want justice.”
A fire erupted in a building near the historic San Martín Plaza on Jan. 19 where anti-government protesters clashed with police, in Lima, Peru. (Video: Reuters)
In a country familiar with political instability — it’s had five presidents in 25 months — Peru appears to be entering a period of unrest unlike any it has experienced in recent years — and with no clear end in sight. The death toll in the last month and a half has now surpassed those of recent years in Colombia and Chile, where protests lasted far longer.
Demonstrators took to the streets last month to protest the ouster of former president Pedro Castillo, the incompetent and allegedly corrupt leader who was impeached and arrested for trying to dissolve Congress and rule by decree. But the cause has grown from a demand for Castillo’s release to a broader expression of frustration with a government and Congress widely seen as corrupt and indifferent to the country’s poor.
Peru’s Castillo impeached, arrested after he tries to dissolve congress
Much of the anger has been focused on Boluarte, Castillo’s vice president and former leftist ally who protesters now believe has aligned with right-wing politicians and the military. They’re holding her responsible for the deaths of at least 53 people in recent clashes between protesters and police, some of the worst violence in the country in decades. At least 19 were killed in a single protest in southern Peru last week. Many of those who have arrived to protest in Lima this week came from the southern cities and towns that have seen the most deaths.
The protests in the capital so far have been smaller in scale than those in 2020, when massive crowds in Lima and across the country forced then-president Manuel Merino to resign. The protests then were more unified — the vast majority of Peruvians were in favor of ousting Merino — and lasted only a few days, noted Omar Coronel, a sociologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. This time, the protests across the country have gone on for weeks, and have broadened beyond removing one political leader.
Also unlike in 2020, these protests originated in the country’s rural regions, in poor and Indigenous communities in the south. Their arrival in the capital, where support for Boluarte is concentrated, has again exposed the die between Lima and the rest of Peru. A recent poll showed that little more than half of Lima residents believed the December protests were justified, and 38 percent believe the main actors are groups linked to terrorism.
The widespread dissatisfaction in the country reflects a crisis of confidence in institutions in Peru, and one that extends from the presidency and the Congress to civil society and the country’s news outlets, said Alberto Vergara, a political scientist at the University of the Pacific. Half of Peruvians say they no longer “support” democracy — the third largest proportion in Latin America, behind only Honduras and Haiti.
“It’s a country that has broken its democratic consensus,” Vergara said. He said the country lacks leaders capable of calming the unrest.
Vergara predicted the protest won’t be quieted unless Boluarte resigns. But even then, he said, the country would enter a period of intense uncertainty. The president of Congress would be tasked with leading the country and bringing elections as soon as possible.
And unless elections come soon, Coronel said, Peru will likely remain stuck in a cycle of violent protests.
“Without that escape valve the protests will stay, and the repression as well,” Coronel said.
Caravans of buses arrived in the capital on Thursday, after hours or days of travel. Protesters marched through the streets chanting: “Dina, Dina, Dina. Traitor and murderer.”
Some wielded signs with photos of protesters killed in recent weeks. Others carried boxes resembling coffins.
“To the people who marginalize us, to the people who think we are ignorant … we are tired,” said Carlos Villafuerte, 42, of Cusco. “Unfortunately, the woman doesn’t listen to us when we’re over there. Let’s see if they’ll listen to us here.”
Later Thursday, flames billowed from the top of a building near San Martín Plaza, where large crowds had gathered for hours. The cause and extent of the fire was not immediately clear, but authorities said the building was empty at the time.
At least 58 civilians were injured in the protests across the country on Thursday, 25 of those in Lima, according to Peru’s ombudsman’s office.
In a televised address Thursday night, Boluarte told Peruvians her government remained “firm” and “the situation is under control.” She criticized demonstrators, who she said were “generating acts of violence that destroy private and state property,” and vowed to prosecute the crimes.
In the country’s interior, she said, protesters had attempted to take control of three airports. She called for a dialogue with those who had traveled to the capital. She also condemned their actions and questioned their intentions.
“To those who are marching daily, who is financing you?” Boluarte asked. “You’re not working. … what money are you bringing home? Why are you abandoning your families to go to the streets to protest?”
Protesters in Peru refuse to back down as political crisis deepens
“You want to generate chaos and disorder … to take control of the nation,” she added. “You are wrong.”
Boluarte has repeatedly refused calls to resign and rejected protesters’ calls for a new Constitutional Assembly. Her government has extended a state of emergency in the country’s capital and three other regions.
Earlier in the evening, a group of people carried an injured man out of the protests. They told a reporter his leg had been hit with a tear-gas canister. Another group carried an injured man in a makeshift stretcher and helped him into a taxi.
Fiorella Callañaupa Manottupa, a 24-year-old political science student, joined a group of college students that traveled more than 24 hours by bus from Cusco. Strangers along the way offered to donate water and food to them.
Callañaupa said she had voted for — and once believed in — former president Castillo. “We saw in him a person who gave us back that confidence.” But she’s now disillusioned by him and his government, and especially in his successor.
“We can no longer reach a dialogue, because many people have died,” she said.
Gilberto Huaman Laime, 24, a student next to her, said it would be a “failure” to return to Cusco before seeing the change they have long demanded.
“Over there,” he said, “they’re waiting for us to return with a victory.”
