Peru’s President Dina Boluarte has called for dialogue after clashes between protesters and police during nationwide demonstrations left one person dead and 30 injured.
“Once again, I call for dialogue, I call on those political leaders to calm down. Have a more honest and objective look at the country; let’s talk,” Boluarte said at a press conference on Thursday evening.
Her comments came after clashes on the streets of the capital Lima, where thousands of protesters from across the country faced a massive show of force by local police.
Protesters marching in Lima – in defiance of a government-ordered state of emergency – demanded Boluarte’s resignation and called for general elections as soon as possible.
State broadcaster TV Peru showed a group of protesters breaking through a security cordon and advancing onto Abancay Ave, near Congress. In the video, protesters can be seen throwing objects and pushing security agents.
Police forces were also seen unleashing tear gas on some demonstrators in the center of the city.
Fire destroyed a historic building in the center of Lima Thursday night. At least 25 fire trucks and dozens of firefighters worked on putting out the fire, TV Peru reported.
Fierce clashes also broke out in the southern city of Arequipa, where protesters shouted “assassins” at police and threw rocks near the city’s international airport, which suspended flights on Thursday. Live footage from the city showed several people trying to tear down fences near the airport, and smoke billowing from the surrounding fields.
Boluarte said 22 members of Peru’s National Police and 16 civilians had been injured and damage reported at airports in Cuzco and Puno, as well as Arequipa.
“All the law will fall on those people who are committing these criminal acts of vandalism, that we are not going to allow it again,” Boluarte said.
She also expressed solidarity with members of the press who had been attacked.
“That’s not a peaceful protest march, the acts of violence generated throughout these days of December and now in January will not go unpunished,” Boluarte said.
Public officials and some of the press have disparaged the protests as driven by vandals and criminals – a criticism that several protesters rejected in interviews with CNN en Espanol as they gathered in Lima this week.
Even if “the state says that we are criminals, terrorists, we are not,” protester Daniel Mamani said.
“We are workers, the ordinary population of the day to day that work, the state oppresses us, they all need to get out, they are useless.”
“Right now the political situation merits a change of representatives, of government, of the executive and the legislature. That is the immediate thing. Because there are other deeper issues – inflation, lack of employment, poverty, malnutrition and other historical issues that have not been addressed,” another protester named Carlos, who is a sociologist from the Universidad San Marcos, told CNNEE on Wednesday.