General Strike in Peru

This Tuesday, January 17, the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, CGTP, and the National Assembly of the Peoples, ANP, held a press conference to call a national strike on January 19.

The leader of the CGTP, Jerónimo López said that "we are calling for a national, civic and popular strike for January 19, considering that after the death of 50 people in clashes, various regions of the country are democratically demanding the resignation of the Mrs. Dina Boluarte, general elections for 2023, the call for a referendum so that the people can rule on whether to call a Constituent Assembly or continue with the current Constitution, and the change of the board of directors of Congress”.

The member of the ANP, Hernando Ceballos, stated that “we reject the police violence that tried to obstruct yesterday the assembly that we were holding at the headquarters of the Telephone Workers. The protest is a right and we hope that the Executive and Legislature respect the voice and the claim of the people”.

For his part, Jorge Pizarro indicated that “70 percent of the citizenry is in favor of a Constituent Assembly. In addition, there are innumerable union, social and professional entities that ask for Boluarte's resignation. And we don't want any more dead, no more persecuted. The police state of Dina Boluarte has to end”.

One of the central actions of the national protest will take place in Lima.

As promised, this Monday, January 16, thousands of people from the four suyos, the original Inca territorial division, are going to the capital of the country to demand the end of the Boluarte-Otárola regime, the closure of the coup and oligarchic Congress, and the call for new general elections this 2023. The protests in different locations in Peru have not stopped for more than a month, which have been felt with special intensity in Apurímac, Cusco, Ayacucho, Arequipa, Madre de Dios and Puno , despite the massacres that reach 50 protesters killed by police and military agents with live ammunition, the innumerable wounded and those accused of “terrorism”.

The march of the four suyos consists of a multitudinous and colorful caravan of the peoples of the Andean country made up of vehicles and walks that began on Sunday, January 15. This Monday the 16th, the mobilizations have multiplied the blockade of highways and roads, reaching more than a hundred of them, when 15 days ago there were only 36, according to official information.

For its part, the dictatorship, offering signs of weakness and decomposition, established a state of emergency in the regions of Lima, Callao, Puno and Cusco, a declaration disrespected by the popular and democratic forces that, armed with dignity and just reasons, march legitimately over the capital, as they did years ago against the tyranny of the genocidal Alberto Fujimori. The measure, which lasts for a month from Sunday, January 15, grants full powers to the police to maintain control of the internal order of the country with the help of the Armed Forces, and consists of the suspension of the constitutional rights of the population, such as the inviolability of the home and the freedoms of transit through the national territory, assembly and personal freedom and security. In the department of Puno the curfew has already been imposed. Nevertheless, the people march.

Submitted by radio on