Peru protesters tear-gassed after president calls for truce

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Peru’s capital and were met with volleys of tear gas and pellets amid clashes with security forces just hours after President Dina Boluarte called for a “truce” in almost two months of protests. The antigovernment protest Tuesday was the largest – and most violent — since last Thursday, when large groups of people, many from remote Andean regions, descended on the capital to demand Boluarte’s resignation, immediate elections and the dissolution of Congress.

Before last week, most of the large antigovernment protests that followed the ouster of President Pedro Castillo took place in remote regions of Peru, largely in the country’s south, exposing deep division between residents of the capital and the long-neglected countryside. The crisis that has sparked Peru’s worst political violence in more than two decades began when Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, tried to short-circuit the third impeachment proceeding of his young administration by ordering Congress dissolved on Dec. 7. Lawmakers impeached him instead, the national police arrested him before he could find sanctuary and Boluarte, who was his vice president, was sworn in.

Some of the leaders at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States did blame Peru’s government for the violence. Chile’s President Gabriel Boric said there’s “an urgent need for a change in Peru because the result of the path of violence and repression is unacceptable.” Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch supporter of Castillo, demanded an “end to the repression.” During the summit’s closing ceremony, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández called for an end to “street violence and institutional violence that has taken the lives of so many people” in Peru. “The international community has expressed concern, but really I think it could be more forceful,” said César Muñoz, associate director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch.

After some feverish closed-door negotiations in Buenos Aires in the afternoon, the situation in Peru was left out of the summit’s closing documents. “Peru is a prickly issue,” but pressure from some leaders had led to last-minute negotiations, said an official in Argentina’s Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to discuss policy. Peru has managed to fly under the radar,” said Marina Navarro, executive director of Amnesty International Peru. “Given the gravity of the situation, with this number of people who have died, we don’t see as much said about it as there could be.” ( Source AP)