International
Peru Congress to resume debate on bringing elections forward
January 31 | By AFP | Carlos Mandujano |
Peru’s Congress will resume debate Tuesday on a bill to bring forward elections, a move aimed at ending weeks of protests that have left dozens dead and brought parts of the country to a standstill.
On Monday, lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the bill after seven hours of discussions, and proceedings will resume at 11:00 am on Tuesday (1600 GMT), according to the legislature.
“We are sure that there will be a way out. All the democratic blocs are going to debate it taking into account the high sense of urgency,” said Prime Minister Alberto Otarola on Monday.
The South American country has been embroiled in a political crisis with near-daily street protests since December 7, when then-president Pedro Castillo was arrested after attempting to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.
In seven weeks of demonstrations, 48 people — including one police officer — have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.
The unrest is being propelled mainly by poor, rural Indigenous people from southern Peru who had identified Castillo as one of their own who would fight to end poverty, racism and inequality.
Dozens of roadblocks have been set up by protesters, causing a shortage of food and fuel in some southern areas as they demand that Castillo’s replacement, President Dina Boluarte, step down.
Trade unions and other bodies have called for another major demonstration against Boluarte in Lima on Tuesday.
Bringing elections forward
Last month, lawmakers moved elections due in 2026 to April 2024, but as protests showed no sign of abating, Boluarte has called to hold them this year, which Congress rejected late Friday.
“Vote for Peru, for the country, by moving the elections up to 2023,” the president said in an address to the nation on Sunday.
Lawmakers “have a chance to win the country’s trust,” she said.
In last week’s vote on moving elections to October, there were 65 votes against and just 45 in favor, with two abstentions.
If reconvened lawmakers again refuse to advance elections, Boluarte has said she will propose a constitutional reform allowing a first voting round to be held in October and a runoff in December.
Protesters are demanding immediate elections, the dissolution of Congress and a new constitution.
In the Lima suburb of Huaycan, hundreds of people marched on Monday chanting: “No more deaths, Dina quit now.”
Dozens of soldiers headed to Ica, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital, to support police in clearing roadblocks on the vital Panamericana Sur highway that connects major cities.
Weeks of roadblocks have caused shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies countrywide.
First death in Lima
According to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies, 73 percent of citizens want elections this year.
Monday’s congressional sitting coincided with a wake for Victor Santisteban, 55, a demonstrator who died Saturday after receiving blunt force trauma to the head, according to a medical report.
Santisteban’s death was the first recorded in Lima since the protests started.
According to the human rights ombudsman’s office, Saturday’s protest in the capital saw at least seven people hospitalized after police used tear gas on demonstrators hurling stones and cement pieces.
Geronimo Lopez, leader of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers, said protesters would “not cease their struggle” until Boluarte steps down, and called for a national march Tuesday.
Boluarte, who as Castillo’s vice president was constitutionally mandated to replace him, has insisted that “nobody has any interest in clinging to power.”
Apart from those who have died in protests, 10 civilians — including two babies — died when they were unable to get medical treatment or medicine due to roadblocks, according to the ombudsman’s office.
The protest movement has affected Peru’s vital tourism industry, forcing the closure of the world-renowned Machu Picchu Inca citadel ruins.
In the district of Poroy, about 15 kilometers from Cusco, about 300 people queued Monday to buy a gas bottle for domestic use.
“There are people here queuing since 3.00 am… I have not had any gas for two weeks,” 33-year-old housewife Gabriela Alvarez told AFP.
“We have had to go back in time to cook with firewood and charcoal which hurts the lungs,” she said.
Peru’s Las Bambas copper mine — responsible for about two percent of global metal supply — said Monday it would have to halt production starting Wednesday unless the roadblocks were lifted.
Chinese owner MMG said in a statement that “after transportation interruptions that affected both entry and exit traffic, (the company) has been forced to start a progressive slowdown of its Las Bambas operation due to a shortage of critical supplies.”
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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