Huamanga, a picturesque Andean city of cobbled streets and whitewashed plazas, was eerily silent. Shop doors were bolted, and the tiny taxis known as ticos were absent in the aftermath of the worst violence it has seen in decades.
A day earlier, soldiers had opened fire on stone-throwing protesters, who tried to storm the local airport’s runway, killing at least eight and injuring more than 70 in running battles, as helicopters rained teargas canisters and bullets over the city.
For many, it was a flashback to a past they had hoped to have left well behind. Huamanga is the capital city of Ayacucho, the Andean region that was brutalised by the state’s conflict with the Mao-inspired Shining Path rebels, suffering half of all the nearly 70,000 deaths between 1980 and 2000.
“It was like reliving all that happened in the 80s and 90s, to be under the overflying helicopters and the sound of shooting,” said Sharmeli Bustíos, speaking by phone from the city.
“It shows that we haven’t learned anything, we keep making the same mistakes,” she lamented. “In the 80s and 90s we lived in a constant state of emergency which meant there were systematic violations of human rights.”
Violence spilled out of control in Ayacucho this week after days of protests against the ousting of Pedro Castillo, who was forced out after he attempted to dissolve congress and rule by decree in an effort to avoid impeachment over corruption allegations. Demonstrators across the country have been calling for the replacement of all lawmakers, the reinstatement of Castillo and the resignation of his successor, Dina Boluarte.
On Wednesday, Boluarte’s new government declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency, deploying the army on the streets and suspending the right to gather and move freely.
“We mourn the tears of the mothers in Ayacucho and we suffer the pain of the families throughout the country,” Boluarte posted on Twitter just after midnight on Friday, offering her condolences to the bereaved and calling for peace.
But the deaths sparked outrage and inflamed demonstrations in Lima and regional cities. Two ministers resigned in protest, one of them – the education minister, Patricia Correa – wrote on Twitter that “state violence cannot be disproportionate and cause death”. Peru’s human rights ombudsman’s office said a criminal complaint had been filed to determine the responsibility, without giving further details.
Amnesty International’s Americas director, Erika Guevara Rosas, urged dialogue “to stop the escalation of violence and prevent the deaths of more people” and demanded the “withdrawal of military forces from the control of protests”.
“Let there not be one more death,” invoked Jennie Dador, secretary general of Peru Human Rights Coordinator, on Friday. The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights announced it would send a mission to Peru this week to investigate the deaths.
By Friday afternoon, the smoke of burning buildings and teargas hung over Huamanga once more, as demonstrators torched judicial buildings – for many, symbols of an incurably corrupt state – and returned to storm the airport runway. This time they were repelled by riot police; the soldiers had been called back to their barracks.
Around the same time, Peru’s congress – the target of collective anger across the country – voted to reject a bill to bring forward the elections to 2023, one of the protesters’ principal demands.
On Saturday morning, Dina Boluarte, flanked by ministers and police and army chiefs, brushed off calls for her resignation and invoked congress to “vote for the sake of the country” to bring forward elections, a move supported by 83% of Peruvians, according to a poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies.
More than 100 roadblocks continue to cripple the transport system across the south, east and north of the country and several airports remain shuttered, amid vandalism and arson.
Bustíos worried that the peaceful protests demanding changes amid a crisis of political legitimacy would be taken over by extremists and vandals. “We don’t want it to get out of hand. Ayacucho has been punished enough by violence,” she said.
Her father, journalist Hugo Bustíos, was ambushed and killed by soldiers in 1988. Daniel Urresti, a former candidate for the presidency and the Lima mayor’s job, was accused and later cleared of murdering the journalist more than 30 years ago when he was an army intelligence chief in the region.
“This political crisis affects everyone,” Bustíos said. “The majority of Peruvians live day-to-day. For many if they don’t work, they don’t eat that day.”
A recent report by the UN’s food and agriculture organisation warned that half of Peruvians faced food insecurity after a “perfect storm” of post-pandemic poverty, global inflation and the climate crisis.
“The congress has to go,” Bustíos said. “It cannot continue with its back turned to the country.”
