By Ingrid Sánchez. Video: Candy Sotomayor.
"No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied
until justice runs like waters and righteousness
like a mighty torrent."
‒Martin Luther King Jr.
"I reject the use of violence and the attempted assault on Congress and the presidency in Brazil. I stand in solidarity with Lula da Silva and the Brazilian people in the face of this intolerant attack by those who seek to impose their political vision, without respecting the law and democratic institutions."
Dina Boluarte, President of Peru, wrote on her Twitter account ‒@DinaErcilla‒ moments after Bolsonarists - from the right - took over the seat of Brazilian power on January 8, while in their land the blood of protesters was flowing, "terruqueros" for her, her government and the current Peruvian elites.
41 days after Boluarte assumed the Executive Power replacing Pedro Castillo - who is accused of a "self-coup" - the 60-year-old from Chalhuanquina has the death of 49 of her compatriots to her credit, almost one per day as a result of the State's violent response to the protests against her.
It is the biggest political crisis in the Andean nation in the last 30 years.
While the military fires bullets, pellets and tear gas bombs, local media bombards the spectrum with the epithet "terruqueo" - as all those who are dissatisfied with the government are called - at every opportunity.
It is a war on several fronts, the previous ones and one more: the political persecution of the best-known social leaders.
They threaten "public tranquility"
As if the current State had gone back three decades, popular leaders are murdered, kidnapped; snatched from their land, they are taken to the facilities of the "Dircote" - Directorate Against Terrorism - a name that shocks those who mention it.
This is the case of Rocío Leandro Melgar, Stefany Alanya Chumbes, Fernando Quinto, Piero Giles, Alejando Manay, Yuliza Gómez and Alex Gómez, university leaders who were arrested in these tense days.
Disrepute does not distinguish gender. This is how Rocío Leandro experiences it, who not a day goes by without the headlines pointing her out and criminalizing her for leading the Ayacucho Defense Front - Fredepa - and having spent time in jail for her political activism, as she explains to Península 360 Press:
"I have been linked to other crimes, but that has not been clarified; I have been sentenced and served the sentence. I have regained my rights as a citizen and I have cleaned up my documents and I have done the paperwork to not have a criminal record."
On January 12, Leandro was arrested at the Fredepa headquarters in Huamanga, Ayacucho and taken to the local police station, but due to pressure from the people of Ayacucho, she was sent to “Los Cabitos,” a sinister barracks where hundreds of remains of victims of military repression between 1980 and 1990 have been found.
Leandro and the university leaders were beaten after their arrest - the residents of Ayacucho accuse - and in the middle of the night, the Army transferred them by air to Dircote in Lima.
The seven are accused of crimes "against public tranquility" and "belonging to a terrorist organization."
They are accused of inciting the Ayucuchanos to take over the Coronel Alfredo Mendívil Duarte Airport on December 15. The takeover provoked an intense reaction from the military that resulted in 10 deaths.
That day, what began as a peaceful mobilization in the historic center of Huamanga - capital of Ayacucho - turned into popular fury as the repressive acts of the State in other places, such as Andahuaylas, became known.
Social organizations in that region called on Ayacucho residents to block the departure of flights from the Alfredo Mendívil Duarte airport under the suspicion that Boluarte's government would send more troops to Andahuaylas via Ayacucho.
Despite the complexity and danger of the events, Fredepa called for calm, for the popular fury to stop momentarily:
«For a moment we were protecting ourselves because at that moment anyone could have died, including us. Instead we tried to protect, to organize ourselves to call the population and what we wanted was for the shooting to stop and we said “Stop! Stop!” we said and they didn’t listen to us because what we wanted was to move the wounded to the area where the ambulance was, but did they really care?»
Stefany Alanya, vice president of the Ayacucho Defense Front, shares her testimony, which is diametrically opposed to the statements of the State that accuse the Front of inflaming the mood that day in December; they called for a retreat and not to confront the repression already unleashed.
Witnesses on December 15 reported that the protesters peacefully took over the terminal while the uniformed officers retreated to one end of the runway, after which the group advanced further. Moments later the Army attacked the unarmed civilians.
The military response was worse than expected and ended in a massacre. The government responded to the stones thrown at civilians with ammunition, pellets and tear gas on the ground and in the air; Fredepa has denounced that there were undercover police who broke up the protest.
In the chaos, the protesters scattered into the streets surrounding the airport. It was of no use. The military opened fire - without hesitation - against the people of Ayacucho and anyone else who crossed their path.
The wounds are evidence of repression: most of them are on the head or chest, both among the wounded and the fallen.
José Luis Aguilar Yucra was one of the “collateral victims” – a military euphemism for those who suffer violence without being the target. He was a worker at a local factory.
The young man was returning home when he encountered repression. At a street crossing he was shot in the head. A Samaritan moved him away from the line of fire, but it was not enough: he bled to death within minutes next to a post where his family is trying to build a niche to remember him.
The anguish over knowing the fate of the 10 fallen turned into anger that overflowed against the Army the following day - December 16 - when the residents burned government buildings and the facilities of Telefónica Movistar, one of the main communication monopolies in Peru.
«The situation has gotten out of hand (…) the main people responsible are those who rule this country. The Peruvian State and this class. Let it be clear why CONFIEP, the big businessmen, this corrupt bourgeois class, are those who have been in Odebrecht, Lava Jato, they are the ones who use these media and now that it is not convenient for them that this lady, Dina Boluarte, comes out, they have practically wanted to spread and make it known to the population that there has been vandalism and that is not the case. It is not the case. We reject it categorically.»
Stefany, vice president of the Front, stressed this days before being arrested and sent to Dircote. In her testimony she strongly rejected the State's accusations that they are "terrorists."
Bullets for everyone, even for those who helped…
The protests that lasted 48 hours were joined by citizens of all kinds, from workers like José Luis Yucra, who worked at the soft drink company Ñor Kola, to students from the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga (UNSCH), like Alex Ávila, who watched the military repression from his home but decided to go out to support those who were being attacked by the uniformed men.
Ávila describes those moments as a "war" against unarmed civilians. As he watched the gas clouds grow thicker in the streets, he climbed down from his roof and went outside, where - while helping a wounded man - his flesh was defiled by the State:
“And I just stopped there, I was starting to scream because seeing him there… and I started screaming and out of nowhere they started shooting at us and boom! I felt like my arm was broken. And when I realized that they were running as if to grab all of us who were hurt, I started running there.”
Alex explains and while showing his wound, he continues:
«It grazed my chest, there was a burn here and there was a wound here and something like fat was coming out, it was all trying to come out. And from here there was the hole and everyone told me “It's a miracle that it didn't hit your bone and they would have amputated you”, another miracle was the heart, and several have died like that with a bullet in the chest, others in the head.»
Despite his injuries, the young man continued his career. His instinct told him that the military would not help him, but quite the opposite.
The pursuit of the "enemies of public peace" continued to the hospital, where police arrived to request personal information from the injured, who did not do so - thanks to the recommendation of the medical staff - in case of the risk of having crimes fabricated against them.
"Where are you, daddy?"
Alex was not the only one who was shot for helping. The case of Edgar Prado, a young man who was shot on his way home from work, went viral on social media.
In a clip circulating online, he is seen approaching a body lying some 60 steps from his home, and as he bends down to support it, he falls struck down by a bullet.
«The last thing I did was call my dad and I said, “Where are you, daddy?” and he said, “I’m on the corner, the soldiers are shooting without conscience, they are shooting in front of me, don’t come, daughter, stay, go home,” and I said, “Okay, daddy, take care of yourself too,” and my dad says, “Okay, daughter, bye,” and he hangs up. My dad had been shot in the chest.»
This is how Sheila, 17 years old, tearfully recounted the last conversation she had with her father before his death.
With pain and conviction, he always answers the same when asked about his father's death:
"I want justice for my father, his death cannot be left like this."
Their demand is shared by the families of those killed and injured; the demand and indignation turned into organization: at the dawn of 2023, the Association of Relatives of Murdered and Injured People of December 15 was formed, a group that seeks justice by suing the State.
Faced with the horror of the Army's boot, Ayacucho residents of all ages respond as they know best: with organization.
official help
At the time of this text's publication, the State - according to testimonies - has not approached either the bereaved or the injured to support them, although it has reported to the press that they would be provided with financial resources.
Meanwhile, the Peruvian Ministry of Health ‒@Minsa_Peru‒ spreads a video that reads:
"We just want to help. Someone needs us. #GiveMeAPass. We save lives."
President Boluarte gave him a retweet.
You can watch the video with interviews on the YouTube channel of Peninsula 360 Press.
This note was made with the support of the organization Global Exchange in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.
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