Protests against the government of Dina Poluarte were reactivated this Wednesday in Peru with the center of Lima and echoed in much of the country. According to the ombudsman’s office, there were marches in 59 provinces and roadblocks in 64, representing 32.7% of territories across the country. However, the Interior Ministry reported that by late afternoon 21,000 people had mobilized across Peru and no more than 1,500 in the capital. Official figures contrasted with massive security and mobilizations seen on the streets of the capital, demanding the president’s resignation and electoral progress. Four months later, after the long wave of protests that hit Peru between December and March, protesters took the opportunity to air their discontent with wit.
At the Plaza San Martín, one of the focal points of Lima’s third acquisition, a flesh-and-blood Barbie appeared this Wednesday in a way American company Mattel never imagined: ahead of the world premiere of a movie about the iconic doll, a Cosplayer He portrayed himself as a “dictator barbie,” referring to Tina Polwart’s administration’s crackdown on protests, taking over from Pedro Castillo in December after a failed coup attempt. Students of the School of Fine Arts designed a two-meter-long pink cardboard box with three annotations: “Certificate of Impunity”, “Madden” and “Includes dum-dum and tear gas bullets”. This last reference refers to the statement made by Poluarte about the eighteen civilians killed in the city of Juliaca last January. According to the president, they were shot dead by a “hand-made weapon called a dum-dum” that authorities said was used by Bolivian paramilitary forces. This thesis has never been proven. The grand packaging was done with the intention of every citizen entering during the parade. But at one point, a woman with heart-shaped glasses and a presidential ribbon holding a toy gun inside, the photo flooded social media.
The concentration began at four in the afternoon at the Plaza dos de Mayo. The majority of the demonstration was made up of Peruvians from the regions—mainly from the southern highlands—who suffered an odyssey to reach the historic center on Wednesday. For example, the Aymara delegation from Puno faced four police interventions until they arrived in Lima. The executive ordered complete control of all vehicles going to the capital. There were also university students, trade unions, feminist and LGTBI groups, religious fraternities and associations of retirees and the elderly.
The banners of the protest, in other cases, were not the same, although they all agreed on the departure of Tina Polwart from power and the promotion of general elections, a situation that the president completely rejected last June. The most divisive and controversial demand is the release of former president Castillo, who has been imprisoned in Barbadillo after serving two custodial sentences. One for allegedly being the head of a criminal organization and the other for sedition after his suicide attempt last December. “People have left Castillo alone, a solo like us,” a leader repeatedly asked the speaker in the Plaza dos de Mayo. Two cardboard boxes containing the names of 49 civilians who died due to the repression of the security forces were kept at that place.
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A group from the southern Dagna region also demanded the release of Betsy Chavez, head of Castillo’s last cabinet, who is behind bars after being jailed for 18 months last month for allegedly co-authoring the self-immolation of rural teachers. It is true that there were people who took to the streets knowing that they would be marching with slogans that were not theirs. But they did not get the majority they expected.
Unlike the mobilizations of the first quarter of the Boulevard, this time the police officers allowed the citizens to reach the citizens on Apanke Avenue after six o’clock in the afternoon. However, after that they strengthened the police cordon and started firing teargas until the crowd retreated. According to the ombudsman’s office, eight were injured, including six civilians and two police officers, including an independent photographer.
In the interior of the country, the day featured clashes between agents and citizens in Huancavelica’s Plaza de Armas in the center of the country, the burning of a cardboard coffin in front of the province of that region of the Peruvian Highlands, and the student takeover of the National University of Cajamarca. Thus ends the first day of a new chapter of social upheaval in Peru.
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