Peru’s Andes ‘descends on’ capital to demand leader resign

LIMA, Peru (AP) — People poured into Peru's coastal capital, many from remote Andean regions, for a protest Thursday against President Dina Boluarte and in support of her predecessor, whose ouster last month launched deadly unrest and cast the nation into political chaos.

Supporters of former president Pedro Castillo, Peru's first leader from a rural Andean background, hope the protest opens a new chapter in the weeks-long movement to demand Boluarte's resignation, immediate elections and structural change in the country. Castillo was impeached after a failed attempt to dissolve Congress.

The protests have so far been held mainly in Peru's southern Andes, with 53 people dying amid the unrest, the large majority killed in clashes with security forces

The demonstrations and subsequent clashes with security forces amount to the worst political violence Peru has experienced in more than two decades and has shined a spotlight on the deep divisions that exist in the country between the urban elite largely concentrated in Lima and the poor rural areas, where citizens have often felt relegated.

“In my own country, the voices of the Andes, the voices of the majority have been silenced,” Florencia Fernández, a lawyer who lives in Cusco, said Wednesday ahead of the protest. “We've had to travel to this aggressive city, this centralist city, and we say, the Andes have descended.”

By bringing the protest to Lima, demonstrators hope to give fresh weight to the movement that began when Boluarte, who was the vice president, was sworn into office on December 7 to replace Castillo.

“When there are tragedies, bloodbaths outside the capital it doesn't have the same political relevance in the public agenda than if it took place in the capital,” said Alonso Cárdenas, a professor of public policies at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University in Lima. “The leaders have understood that and say, they can massacre us in Cusco, in Puno, and nothing happens, we need to take the protest to Lima,” Cárdenas added, citing two cities that have seen protest violence.

The concentration of protesters in Lima also reflects how the capital has started to see more antigovernment demonstrations in recent days.

“Lima, which hadn't joined the protests at all in the first phase in December, decided to join after the Juliaca massacre,” Omar Coronel, a political science professor at the Catholic University of Peru, said, referring to the 18 people killed in that southern city on January 9.

The protesters on Thursday are planning to march from downtown Lima to the Miraflores district, one of the emblematic neighbourhoods of the country's economic elite.

The government has called on protesters to be peaceful.

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