Peru awakened: between the criminalisation of protest and street activism

The session began with an extract from the video by la Asociación Peruana de Profesionales de Comunicación that shows some of the violent events between the 9th and 16th of November in Peru (scroll to the end of the page to see it).

On the night of 9th of November, the president of Peru, Martin Vizcarra, was taken out of his office on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity” as he faced corruption charges just five months before the general elections. The congress that voted the president down consists of 130 parliamentarians, out of which 68 are being investigated for different crimes.

The act was seen as a coup d’etat, and the Peruvians went to the streets in mass protests. The protests were soon violently repressed by the police.

On the 14th of November, the police repression led to two young Peruvians’ deaths: Inti Sotelo Camargo, 24 and Bryan Pintado Sanchez, 22. Both had been marching on the frontline (primera linea), deactivating gas bombs thrown by the police.

Another young man, Jon Cordero Morales, received a bullet into his spine which left him paralysed (against the predictions of doctors, the boy could walk with crutches in March 2021).

There were at least 80 wounded, out of which 30 were severely wounded. Up to the day of the seminar discussion, no one in the police force, or a high governmental position faced charges for the youths’ assassinations.

On the same day of the session another youth who was only 20 years old, Jorge Muñoz Jimenez was shot to death by the police in an agrarian protest in North of Peru.

Our guests also reported that the state’s violence continued through arbitrary arrests based on suspicion of Left-wing affiliation.

Latin America is Moving Collective summarises below the findings of the conversation.

TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY & THE YOUTH AS PROTAGONISTS IN THE PROTESTS:

Akemii, who lives in Germany, tells how Peruvians abroad, especially young Peruvians, have mobilised during the protests. In her view, Peruvians living in other countries have become more politicised. Aside from social media/podcasts, alternative media like Wayka (by independent reporters) have had an essential role in informing people outside of Peru what has been happening.

The marches were named the marches of the “Bicentenario” because in 2021 Peru celebrates its 200th anniversary. They were conducted mainly by people in their 20s, who are taking back the democracy.

Isabel (Chabelita) highlights the labourers are marching because of the youths' demands for justice. The cleaners empathize with the sense of powerlessness that the youth and the mothers of the victims experience.

Akemii stresses that times are different today than during the 1980s when the country went through the internal war between Sendero Luminoso and the state military: the youth have a different way of communicating. The people portrayed themselves playfully in the November protests. The cartoon figure Elmo was their emblem.

The new carnivalesque ways of communicating generated a new sense of community, which eliminated associations with terrorism. The internet has also allowed people to search for information online, making protests and their motivations more transparent.

DEEPENING INEQUALITY:

José recounts how the suffering caused by inequality extenuated by COVID was a condition of the marches. It was the last drop in a glass that was already full. The young generation was tired to see the rampant corruption amidst the increasing poverty and felt a deep sense of indignation.

As the incapacity of institutions is notorious, the only response by the government to the protests was using violence. Two youths die, and at least 30 people are gravely hurt (for more details see Wayka.pe). People disappeared for 48 hours which is sufficient to account for a human rights violation.

However, the violence and corruption is not something new, but Peruvians have been there before. Not all reporters have played the most transparent role in claiming that it is the first time something like this happens in Peru. The difference was that November marches happened in the city. They were urban phenomena. Therefore, this time media showed more attention than the hundreds of times people have died in countryside protests.

AGRICULTURAL STRUGGLE:

The panel also spoke of the agricultural labourers’ barely existent rights. During the very same day, the labourers in North of Peru had been mobilising. To our disgrace, José informs that only a half an hour earlier the first victim of the Agrarian protests was announced. Jorge Muñoz Jimenez, 20 years old, died of a police bullet towards the protestors.

José tells how in the agrarian sector and in any other labour sector there has been a capture of the state by economic interests, which cuts the labour rights in half. At the same time, tax to multinational companies gets lowered by half.

WOMEN’S ROLE:

Women have assumed important positions in the marches. For example, they have assumed leading positions in deactivating tear-gas bombs in the auto-organised brigades formed by the youth.

Isabel points out that despite all the talk of women’s rights, the state carries out violence towards women as most cleaners are women. The state has been suppressing the cleaners’ protests violently by spraying them with dirty water and giving the protestors fines they have had difficulties in paying. All these acts constitute violence of the state specifically targeted at women.

LABOUR STRUGGLES:

For José, the struggles of labourers like Chabelita (Isabel) are an expression of hope.

Isabel tells about how the labourers continue to go to the streets, organising and protesting. They demand that the municipality and other authorities comply with labour law regulations, and make regulations to protect the labourers from outsourcing.

Protests are the only way to make their claims heard. Because of the outsourcing of the cleaning services, there exists still a possibility that they all will be fired. The mask they are required to wear because of COVID does not, however, silence them.

The cleaners will continue to protest until the government respects the labour of the cleaners. Thanks to cleaners the neighbourhood is clean, and with their labour, they also protect the climate.

Because of the cleaners' protests, congress members debate the elimination of outsourcing and a day before Isabel had a meeting with the vice-president Mirtha Vasquez.

CORRUPTION & CRISIS OF INSTITUTIONS:

The panel agrees there is a high level of corruption in all state levels and its institutions, which impedes legislative innovations to happen. Underneath all interactions, there is a pervasive power game between different actors.

José points out that the crisis in institutions is not an isolated case of Peru, but it is a global phenomenon. However, it is most pressingly seen in Latin American countries, that all share the same patterns. While corruption has always existed, it has now reached an evident level; we could be speaking of an overflow of corruption.

A turning point was the Odebrecht scandals which discredited all the political institutions: from after that no-one believes anything politicians have to say. Were the politicians go to a street protest, they would not last in the protest a minute.

The pandemic has hit the poor the most, making the existing poverty and high inequality levels even more visible. The condition of corruption was no longer tolerated as people started falling back into poverty. At the same time, people saw the politicians robbing, which made the indignation even worse.

José stresses that the judges cannot be investigated as the system of impunity works perfectly. The profound crisis of institutions means they are not able to investigate even one assassination seen by everyone. José is sure that just as in Bryan and Inti’s case, Jorge Muñoz death will remain in impunity.

INDIGENOUS EPISTEMOLOGY IN THE NEW PLURINATIONAL CONSTITUTION:

José points to the processes that have happened in neighbouring Bolivia and Ecuador as examples of how the constitutional process can address the multiple contradictions that occur in any constitution in the world. The new constitution needs to be a plurinational one, as extractivism has created a considerable amount of pressure on indigenous communities and there is an enormous climate debt to be paid by the state.

Climate change is something that we are all going through and is something that can threaten our existence. There seems to be no adequate solution in Europe; it seems people are between four walls with no exit. The concept of development that allows mineral exploitation is indeed a Western concept.

In contrast, ideas native to the continent of South America have good proposals on the matter. The rights of nature base on the principle that humans cannot be abstracted away from nature: we would not destroy our habitat as we are all interlinked with nature and not above it. This indigenous epistemology has a lot to teach to any universal constitutional process.

STATE TERRORISM THROUGH ARBITRARY ARRESTS:

Isabel stresses the violence is carried out by the state, not by the people, and she urges us in the foreign countries to convey that the violence is not coming from the people but by the state.

Akemii tells that they are being sold the story of youth being violent by a privileged class afraid of losing their privileges. The (right-wing) state wants to say they were the ones who conquered terrorism (by Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, who operated during the 1980s and 1990s). However, all the people, - including those on the Left - have struggled against terrorism.

The activists, political organisations and people on the Left have not been heard in the Commission for Truth representing the state version of what happened during the internal conflict (of the 1980s and 1990s). There is still fear of the Left among the people: they are associated with terrorism, and their political representation is sought to be eliminated.

Akemii points out how lately, students from the University of San Marcos have been arrested. They are portrayed as terrorists. She calls it the campaign of “terruqueo” made in order to silence voices.

José also affirms that in no part in the present-day labour organisations there exist any mechanisms of terrorism. He affirms Akemii’s view that the state is now continuing with practices that resemble curiously too much the practices in the 1980s. A day before, he received a call from his former student telling about arbitrary arrests by the police.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSABILITY ON EXTRACTIVE ACTIVIES:

The panellists’ testimonies also tell about the violations of international companies in Peru, which increase their productions through the labour exploitation of Peruvian people. Isabel tells how children in the Andes have got cancer out of the contamination caused by foreign mining companies.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS:

The side of hope is the constitutional process. For Akemii, the constitutional process is not a solution to all problems, but a solution for new possible solutions. The suffering of people has also always guaranteed people rights.

In Akemii’s view, the new constitution would have to eliminate the neoliberal regime that has allowed education and health to turn into a service. She also stresses that what has kept the Peruvians alive during the pandemic is the informal sector. Therefore, the state should recognise the informal sector’s labour and give them incentives.

Isabel tells that the cleaners demand a referendum for a new constitution because the current one was made by a dictator, who favoured the banks: nothing in the current conservative and mercantilist constitution protects the labourer or the climate. The politicians refer back to the constitution every time the people demand something.

The labourers also demand that the next government gives priority to education that is at the bottom levels, along with the health sector.

José stresses that the capacity to reinvent the structures has to come from the people who are suffering. The constitutional process cannot come from the political class, but it has to surge from the popular classes, from a constituent assembly. The constituent assembly does not guarantee that it will favour popular classes or indigenous movements. The process can be made participative only if there is a permanent mobilisation.

When people went to demand that Merino would leave, no-one knew what would happen. People wanted to control citizenship and see what politicians were doing. The street that was observing what was happening in the congress made the congress choose the smallest parties for the interim government, which would not have happened with the traditional voting process. This shows that congress-members will do changes in favour of the people if there is pressure by mobilisation.

Following the panel discussion, Latin America is Moving collective affirms the need to draft a new constitution, through new rules of the game that go beyond the pitfalls of representative democracy.

-The New Constitution must work in favour of public labourers, acknowledge women’s role in carrying out the reproductive labour vital for the community, acknowledge the autonomy of indigenous territories, and limit foreign companies’ plundering of extractive minerals.

-The New Constitution must also guarantee the labour rights of the Agrarian sector and stop the exploitation of agricultural labourers. Food production to wealthy countries favouring the business leaders, and not the Peruvian population, must be eliminated.

#EndAgriculturalExploitation #DecentAgriculturalWages #NoToOutsourcing #JusticeForCleanersPeru #InstitutionalReform #NoToImpunity #NoToCorruption #PlurinationalConstitution #RightsofNature #FreedomOfPoliticalViews #NoArbitraryArrests #NoToStateViolence #NoMoreMiningWithoutResponsability #MakeRichCountriesPay #ReformingDemocracy #MobilisingBeyondVote #NewConstitution #InformalSectorRights

Further information:

Read also a blog post in Spanish about the event by Enrique Góngora: Locus Amoenus (egongora.blogspot.com)

Article about Isabel Cortez: Isabel Cortez, una barrendera contra la corrupción (pikaramagazine.com)

Article about Inti and the role of indigeneity in protests: La sangre de la democracia | Chirapaq Español