During the march in Lima to demand the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, Thursday January 19, 2023. ALESSANDRO CINQUE/ Portal
They entered the historic center of Lima to applause and cacophony whistles and chants. “This reception is for our brothers and sisters who have come from so far,” says Mirella Silva, a 22-year-old student living in the Peruvian capital who came to join the procession. You are defending a just cause against a government that is deaf and indifferent to all these dead people. Tens of thousands of peasants, workers and students, mostly from the Andes, marched peacefully through the streets of Lima on Thursday, January 19. Many carried the red and white national flag and chanted: “Dina, renuncia” – “Dina [Boluarte, la présidente par intérim], to resign. »
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We feared violence, we feared the reaction of the police and the military, in a climate of emergency and as security forces in the Andes fired live ammunition at protesters demanding new elections after the failed coup and the ousting of President Pedro Castillo (left) , December 7, 2022. But when the firing of tear gas intended to prevent protesters from reaching Congress left around twenty injured, no one died -year-old man was shot in the abdomen.
The journey from their regions to Lima had taken some demonstrators up to thirty hours, covered in trucks or buses through the mountain range. “We left home on Tuesday morning,” says Rebecca Chahua Velasquez, who is originally from the Altiplano near Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian border, more than a thousand kilometers from Lima. “We encountered many obstacles along the way. There were police and army roadblocks. We were checked several times,” the woman, in her fifties, continues, her hair tied in a long ponytail and covered with a hat.
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“It was an exhausting journey,” breathes Felicia Mamani, 30 years old. But we got a lot of donations from citizens. Food, water, money, enough to be able to stay in the capital for several days if necessary. Because the movement to “take Lima” and make itself heard by a central power that says it doesn’t understand why it’s demonstrating wants to be long-term. “I left my children, my husband. I left everything because it’s a fight for a better Peru,” adds this Altiplano farmer.
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