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Clashes in Lima as thousands rally against Peru government

Photo: Juan Carlos Cisneros / AFP

January 20 | By AFP | Carlos Mandujano / Luis Jaime Cisneros |

Thousands marched through Peru’s capital Thursday in a large anti-government rally punctuated by clashes with police, while the death toll from over a month of violent protests climbed in the country’s southern regions.

Some of the Lima protesters, who are demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and fresh elections, threw stones and bottles at officers in the city center, AFP reporters saw.

The police were forced to temporarily retreat before they dug in behind riot shields and began deploying tear gas. At least two people were injured.

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One building near the central Plaza San Martin caught fire, though it was not immediately clear how.

Peru has been rocked by protests since the ouster of Boluarte’s predecessor, Pedro Castillo, in early December — though violent clashes have largely been isolated thus far to the country’s south and east.

In the southern city of Arequipa, some 1,000 protesters tried early Thursday to storm the airport, but were also repelled by police firing tear gas, local television showed.

Peru’s human rights ombudsman later announced that one person had been killed in Arequipa, adding to two other deaths resulting from clashes on Wednesday and raising the nationwide death toll to 45.

The demonstrators in Lima, who are mostly from Andean regions, set off from several points around the capital with the aim of reaching the heavily-guarded presidential palace by the end of Thursday. 

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“Dina listen, the people disown you,” they chanted, while others called for the president to be assassinated. 

“We are here, fighting for our just cause. We want them to close Congress,” villager Ayda Aroni, who came from Ayacucho, 330 kilometers (205 miles) southeast of Lima, told AFP.

“We are marginalized, they say we’re vandals, they call us terrorists, we’re demanding our rights.”

“I am in Lima to defend the country because there is too much corruption. Dina does not represent us. We’re going to stay for a week to continue the demonstrations,” said Demetrio Jimenez, who came from Puno, near the Bolivian border.

Demonstrators also tried to once again take over the airport in Cusco, a popular tourist destination, though it was closed; while there were similar protests in regions such as Puno, Huanuco and Tacna.

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Boluarte called for dialogue late Thursday.

“I will not tire” of seeking peaceful ways to move the country forward, she said on state television — adding that the “acts of violence generated throughout December and now in January will not go unpunished.”

Ready to ‘give my life’

The protesters in Lima are trying to keep up pressure on the government, defying a state of emergency declared to maintain order.

On Thursday, the emergency was extended to three more regions, bringing almost one-third of the country under the order.

“We have 11,800 police officers in the streets to control unrest, we have more than 120 vans and 49 military vehicles, and also the armed forces are participating,” said police chief Victor Zanabria Thursday.

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Protesters are undeterred, though.

“In Lima, the struggle has more weight. When they repress us in our regions, no one mentions it,” said Abdon Felix Flores, a 30-year-old villager from Andahuaylas in the Cusco region.

Flores said he was ready “to give my life” to ensure change.

“We have come in an organized way to take over Lima, to paralyze Lima, to be heard,” said Jesus Gomez, an agricultural engineer from Chumbivilcas, also in the Cusco region.

One of Peru’s biggest labor unions, the General Confederation of Workers, called a strike for Thursday, though there were no visible signs of such a strike in Lima.

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“The Peruvian people’s struggle will not end tomorrow,” Geronimo Lopez, the general secretary of the General Confederation of Workers, said in a press conference late Wednesday night.

“It will continue as long as Mrs Dina Boluarte doesn’t listen to the people,” added Lopez.

‘Traitor’

Peru’s sports institute suspended the start of the national football league this weekend due to the unrest, while almost 100 roadblocks remain across Peru.

Castillo was removed from office and arrested on December 7 after attempting to dissolve the country’s legislature and rule by decree, amid multiple corruption investigations.

The crisis also reflects the huge gap between the capital and the rural provinces, which supported Castillo and saw his election as revenge for Lima’s contempt.

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Boluarte, who was Castillo’s vice president, succeeded him. But despite Boluarte belonging to the same left-wing party, Castillo supporters have rejected her, even accusing her of being a “traitor.”

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International

Venezuela claims that the US seeks to ignore and delegitimize the presidential elections

The Government of Venezuela affirmed that the United States is trying to ignore and delegitimize the presidential elections of next July 28, after the Joe Biden Administration asked for the participation of all anti-Chavist candidates who wish to do so.

“Venezuela categorically rejects the statement of March 27, 2024 of the United States Government in which, finally, the heads of the operation against Venezuela show their face, as owners of a circus that tries to ignore and delegitimize the next presidential elections,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in X.

He argued that the United States intends to minimize the participation of 37 “political forces” at the national level, “which, covering the broad ideological spectrum that exists in the country, registered 13 presidential candidacies, including 12 that identify themselves as opposition.”

The Venezuelan Executive stated that it has fully complied with the legal regulations and with “every point” of the Barbados Agreement to hold the presidential elections.

“In the face of this new claim of the State Department, to take the path of extremism against Venezuelan democracy, Bolivarian dignity will make them fail again and again,” he said.

On Wednesday, the United States insisted on the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, to allow the participation in the July 28 elections of all opposition candidates who wish to do so.

The Biden Administration thus reiterated its position on the disqualification of the main opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, and the impossibility of her formation, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), to register the academic Corina Yoris as a replacement.

“The acceptance by the CNE of only those opposition candidates with whom Maduro and his representatives feel comfortable goes against competitive and inclusive elections,” warned the spokesman of the State Department, Matthew Miller.

Faced with the difficulties of the opposition platform to nominate a candidate, the Governments of Brazil and Colombia, allies of the Venezuelan, expressed their concern about what happened on Tuesday.

The PUD reported on the same Tuesday that it managed to register, provisionally, Edmundo González Urrutia, who may be replaced from next April 1, as long as he does not have any administrative sanction or impediment.

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International

Palestinian Prime Minister chosen by hand by Abbas presents new government with 22 ministers

The Palestinian Prime Minister, economist Mohamad Mustafa, presented on Thursday to President Mahmud Abbas the composition of a new government with 22 ministers, including at least three women, and in which he himself will head the Foreign Affairs portfolio.

“The Prime Minister-designate, Muhamad Mustafa, presented the work program and the composition of the government to President Mahmud Abbas,” the official Wafa news agency reported today, “consequently, the president issued a decree law giving confidence to the nineteenth government and issued a decree approving its formation.”

The new cabinet will take an oath this Sunday, March 31, and in its program one of the priorities is the Gaza Strip, including a plan to increase access to humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of the enclave, as well as create a stable Palestinian Authority, since it has been dejured by the majority of Palestinians for years.

Mustafa will hold the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Riyad Al Malki; while Zyad Mahmoud Mohamed will serve as Minister of the Interior and Omar Akram Al Bitar, former Middle East executive of one of the world’s major consulting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers, will be Minister of Finance.

Sharhabel Yusef Sad Edin will serve as Minister of Justice and Majid Awni Mohamed Abu Ramadan in Health, according to the official list. Among the ministers Mona Muhamad Mahmoud al Jalili will lead the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Ahed Faeq Atef Bseiso, will be in charge of Public Works and Housing. Samah Abdel Rahim Hussein Hamad will be Minister of Social Development.

On March 14, President Abás appointed Mustafa as prime minister of the ANP, which controls the occupied territory of the West Bank in a fragmented way, and commissioned him to form a new government after the resignation two weeks before the entire cabinet along with the then prime minister, Mohamed Shtayeh.

Shatyeh’s resignation was understood as part of Abas’ efforts to reform the ANP with a technocratic government that can take control of the Gaza Strip when the war ends in the Palestinian enclave, something that is in the US future plans but not in those of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The ANP ruled in the Gaza Strip until 2007, when Hamas forcibly took power from the enclave after failing the attempts of a government of national unity with Fatah, after the Islamist group won in the 2006 legislative elections.

Although weakened and without any influence in Gaza – in December 2023 60% of Palestinians supported the dissolution of the ANP and 92% the resignation of Abas, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research – the ANP is the only entity accepted by Israel and a large part of the international community as an interlocutor of the Palestinians.

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International

Changing the time has an impact on the economy and your health: this entity asks to end the measure in the EU

The non-profit organization Time Use Initiative (TUI), which promotes the right to time around the world, demands an end to the time change in Europe in the electoral programs that will be presented for the next elections in the European Parliament (June 9).

The entity, according to a statement issued on Monday, defends the end of this measure because changing the clocks to an incorrect time zone “negatively affects individual and collective health, as well as the economy.”

During the last 30 years, he adds, “it has been shown that living in the wrong time zones has a negative impact on energy savings, on the risk of cancer and other diseases, on the performance of workers and students, or on GDP, among other issues.”

Specifically, according to TUI, 20% of European citizens and 34% of women with children “suffer from time poverty,” which means “affects both individual well-being and social cohesion.”

The roadmap set out in the EU Manifesto focuses especially on sectors that may experience a greater impact, such as emergency and transport services, and includes a public awareness campaign.

The platform’s request, whose main objective is to encourage public debate on how to collectively organize time to improve the well-being of citizens, coincides with the time change on European clocks on March 31.

According to the entity’s statement, ending the seasonal time change for 2026 is one of the 12 measures included in the EU Manifesto on time policies promoted by TUI to guarantee the right to time in Europe.

According to TUI, the fact that no changes have been implemented in this aspect responds to “beliefs and myths about the need to maintain daylight saving time that persist between public opinion and political debate.”

Three examples:

One of those myths, in the opinion of this entity, is that daylight saving time saves energy.

The platform responds that this “could be spending more energy, given the current consumption patterns, which increase the expenditure on cooling and heating.”

Another myth that TUI points out is that the end of the time change could harm the economy, especially certain sectors such as tourism, leisure or retail trade.

With regard to this argument, experts mention issues such as that the current configuration already causes lack of sleep and, therefore, less productivity and work accidents, or that it is not daylight saving time, but summer and good weather that drive tourism and leisure.

And a third myth: the belief that ending time changes means changing daily habits.

TUI mentions the argument of the International Alliance for Natural Time (IANT), which assures that, since habits are already constant throughout the year in terms of time, they can remain the same.

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