The government of Dina Boluarte which killed 48 demonstrators and wounded thousands remains in power, along with a Congress that has been rejected by the population in general. They remain in power by the force of repression, the persecution of leaders, slander, and the blatant lies that accuse those who protest of being terrorists. They remain in power in order to promote measures that shamelessly favor the bosses and the big corporations against the working people, and they seek to extend the control of the judicial and electoral systems to evade justice and secure their grip on the country. In short, the continuation of the government and Congress is a threat that cannot be tolerated and this is understood by the regions that continue the struggle, and advance the necessity for a united struggle that includes all the people.
By: PST-Peru
The current government is one that primarily works to maintain itself by force and impunity not only with respect to the murders it has been party to, which have been thoroughly documented by national and international entities but also in the face of the corruption it has been involved in according to various revelations. And for these reasons, it favors agreement with Congress at any cost, especially with the ultra-right sector that is in control of this governing body.
Who is contributing to the government’s continuation in power
But the government remains in power not only because of its own stubbornness. In its favor is the party system, which also refuses to leave. They have shamelessly and repeatedly pretended that they were trying to push forward the date of the next elections, but today there has been absolutely no measure that would guarantee elections are held before 2026. The legislators in Congress remain in power, and some of them, including the left-wing reformist benches, do not even care that they are participating in the most reactionary congress that is doing whatever it wants with the control it has.
The influence of the Fujimori clique and that of the most right-wing legislators has also reached key institutions such as the Constitutional Court, the judiciary, and the District Attorney. Its continuation represents a threat in the form of impunity in the face of corruption (let us not forget that Keiko Fujimori is accused of leading a criminal organization for money laundering), as well as more laws favorable to business, the repeal of even lukewarm regulation including restrictions on outsourcing labor, as well as the pursuit of the control of key entities such as the National Jury of Elections and the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) ahead of the next general elections.
That is why the crisis has not ended. As national discontent has continued with greater intensity in towns where there have been more deaths by military and police bullets, here in Lima the protests against members of the government and Congress have not ceased either. And everything indicates that they will not end until the guilty parties, those politically and criminally responsible, are punished.
Other government supporters
The collaboration for the continuation of the government and Congress in power does not end there. Also participating, either by action or omission, are the institutions which have joined those previously mentioned in the formation of the National Accord. The National Accord met on January 10 with the purpose of legitimizing the Boluarte government, which had already caused the deaths of 22 demonstrators. And further, that very meeting was suspended due to the killing of protestors during the bloody repression in Puno.
The newly elected regional governors were included in the National Accord meeting, and they requested that the meeting be public in order to share their grievances. But the organizers ordered that it be held behind closed doors. Still, this meeting turned out to be untenable because the government cynically continued its repression and murder of demonstrators. Despite the ongoing violence, members of the Accord supported the government.
All of them are complicit in the current situation and the threats that hang over democratic freedoms and rights, the heartfelt demands of the workers and the people. This includes the threat to survival in the face of dangerous landslides and the effects of the coastal El Niño.
Unfortunately, the parties of the reformist left and even the leaders of the main trade union centers are also members of the National Accord. They are responsible for the fact that the just struggle of the regional movements has not become a national struggle, which would have made the current situation very different.
The crisis continues and worsens with landslides
The effects of climate change on the country are becoming more and more serious. The poorest populations have seen how landslides can sweep away streets and entire neighborhoods in mere minutes, thus destroying numerous homes and leaving a social tragedy in their wake. Floods and landslides are increasingly strong evidence of how nature is changing due to global warming. That said, the impact of the landslides and flooding is anything but natural, they are the consequence of scandalous inaction in the implementation of measures that would prevent and mitigate such tragedies.
The floods and landslides once again reveal the true face of the neoliberal plan, and of the successive governments that have subordinated themselves to this plan. Which is to say they have renounced any kind of national prevention and mitigation strategy. All governments have followed this “model” without question since a real prevention and mitigation strategy would include structures for containment, slope stabilization and forestation, urban planning, channeling, etc., and therefore would imply the allocation of a large number of resources. These funds could only come from taxes on transnational corporations and large companies, which generate the most revenue in terms of national wealth.
Even the resources designated for the pompously named project “Reconstruction with Changes,” which was supposed to repair the damages caused by the landslides of the coastal El Niño of 2017, and prevent new ones, have been devastated by further landslides due to the incompetence and corruption of the those in office.
Dina Boluarte’s government is no exception to the rule, in addition it has shown itself to be incredibly incompetent as its focus has been on securing its own impunity and the repression of the people as is central policy. As a government, it has shown itself to be incapable of undertaking the urgent solutions that the affected population demands, such as water pumps to drain flooded areas and earth-moving machinery to fix the erosion caused by the landslides. As in 2017, protests will proliferate due to the government’s abandonment of the people, as the government only understands how to carry out policies of repression and conditional aid.
In light of the situation described above, the continuation of the government and the Congress in power until 2026 will only further these and other crises. In spite of this, there are sectors that believe that there exists a democracy that can be rescued. And they encourage an agreement based on the following conditions: measures for the victims, a push for the punishment of those responsible for the murders, and the defense of the democratic rights that are under attack. At the same time, paradoxically, they believe that the current government, which is the cause of the problem, can be part of that process. This is the contradiction that characterizes the defenders of “democracy” that succeeded the Fujimori dictatorship without eradicating the constitution imposed by that regime.
Translation: John Prieto
