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Peru Congress to resume debate on bringing elections forward

Photo: MercoPress

January 31 | By AFP | Carlos Mandujano |

Peru’s Congress will resume debate Tuesday on a bill to bring forward elections, a move aimed at ending weeks of protests that have left dozens dead and brought parts of the country to a standstill. 

On Monday, lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the bill after seven hours of discussions, and proceedings will resume at 11:00 am on Tuesday (1600 GMT), according to the legislature. 

“We are sure that there will be a way out. All the democratic blocs are going to debate it taking into account the high sense of urgency,” said Prime Minister Alberto Otarola on Monday.

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The South American country has been embroiled in a political crisis with near-daily street protests since December 7, when then-president Pedro Castillo was arrested after attempting to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.

In seven weeks of demonstrations, 48 people — including one police officer — have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.

The unrest is being propelled mainly by poor, rural Indigenous people from southern Peru who had identified Castillo as one of their own who would fight to end poverty, racism and inequality.

Dozens of roadblocks have been set up by protesters, causing a shortage of food and fuel in some southern areas as they demand that Castillo’s replacement, President Dina Boluarte, step down.

Trade unions and other bodies have called for another major demonstration against Boluarte in Lima on Tuesday.

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Bringing elections forward

Last month, lawmakers moved elections due in 2026 to April 2024, but as protests showed no sign of abating, Boluarte has called to hold them this year, which Congress rejected late Friday.

“Vote for Peru, for the country, by moving the elections up to 2023,” the president said in an address to the nation on Sunday. 

Lawmakers “have a chance to win the country’s trust,” she said.

In last week’s vote on moving elections to October, there were 65 votes against and just 45 in favor, with two abstentions.

If reconvened lawmakers again refuse to advance elections, Boluarte has said she will propose a constitutional reform allowing a first voting round to be held in October and a runoff in December.

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Protesters are demanding immediate elections, the dissolution of Congress and a new constitution.

In the Lima suburb of Huaycan, hundreds of people marched on Monday chanting: “No more deaths, Dina quit now.”

Dozens of soldiers headed to Ica, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital, to support police in clearing roadblocks on the vital Panamericana Sur highway that connects major cities.

Weeks of roadblocks have caused shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies countrywide.

First death in Lima

According to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies, 73 percent of citizens want elections this year.  

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Monday’s congressional sitting coincided with a wake for Victor Santisteban, 55, a demonstrator who died Saturday after receiving blunt force trauma to the head, according to a medical report. 

Santisteban’s death was the first recorded in Lima since the protests started.

According to the human rights ombudsman’s office, Saturday’s protest in the capital saw at least seven people hospitalized after police used tear gas on demonstrators hurling stones and cement pieces.

Geronimo Lopez, leader of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers, said protesters would “not cease their struggle” until Boluarte steps down, and called for a national march Tuesday.

Boluarte, who as Castillo’s vice president was constitutionally mandated to replace him, has insisted that “nobody has any interest in clinging to power.”

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Apart from those who have died in protests, 10 civilians — including two babies — died when they were unable to get medical treatment or medicine due to roadblocks, according to the ombudsman’s office.

The protest movement has affected Peru’s vital tourism industry, forcing the closure of the world-renowned Machu Picchu Inca citadel ruins.

In the district of Poroy, about 15 kilometers from Cusco, about 300 people queued Monday to buy a gas bottle for domestic use.

“There are people here queuing since 3.00 am… I have not had any gas for two weeks,” 33-year-old housewife Gabriela Alvarez told AFP.

“We have had to go back in time to cook with firewood and charcoal which hurts the lungs,” she said.

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Peru’s Las Bambas copper mine — responsible for about two percent of global metal supply — said Monday it would have to halt production starting Wednesday unless the roadblocks were lifted.

Chinese owner MMG said in a statement that “after transportation interruptions that affected both entry and exit traffic, (the company) has been forced to start a progressive slowdown of its Las Bambas operation due to a shortage of critical supplies.”

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International

Former President Alberto Fujimori, admitted to a hospital for probable tumor in the tongue

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, 85, was admitted to a clinic in Lima and will be operated on for a probable tumor at the base of the tongue, his daughter Keiko Fujimori reported on Monday.

The former president (1990-2000), who received a humanitarian pardon in 2017 and was released at the end of last year, has received cancer treatment for an injury to the oral area in the past and has had recurrent medical attention for the same reason.

Precisely, his medical record was the reason for former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to grant him the pardon before he served 25 years of sentence for crimes against humanity.

Last night, on behalf of his family, his daughter and former presidential candidate reported on his account on the social network X that his father was admitted to the Delgado Clinic in Lima to prepare him and perform a surgical intervention related to his tongue injury.

He added that the medical report literally specifies that Fujimori has “an Ambulatory Presumptive Diagnosis of malignant tumor at the base of the tongue with probable right cervical metastases.”

In this sense, the also leader of the Fuerza Popular party announced that they will carry out an examination under general anesthesia and biopsy in the operating room for their father.

“The objective of this intervention is to perform a biopsy that allows us to confirm the exact nature of that disease. The results of the biopsy will still take several days,” he said.

He stated that his father and his family trust that he will be able to “overcome and recover” and thanked the prayers of those who appreciate his father.

In recent weeks, the images shared on social networks show the former president walking through the streets of Lima with people in his care and receiving in a good mood the greetings of his supporters.

Likewise, Fujimori opened a YouTube channel where he reviews his management by the government and in the last of his deliveries, last Friday, he denied that he had transported drugs on the presidential plane, as it emerges from a judicial process that recently expelled his children, and asked his followers not to be “poononed” by his “enemies.”

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International

Police enter La Sorbonne to expel dozens of pro-Palestinian students

The riot police entered the Sorbonne University of Paris, the most emblematic in France, to expel dozens of pro-Palestinian students who had settled in the main courtyard of the building next to the Pantheon to protest the Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.

The police intervention, which took place without incidents and without the reporting of arrests, at least at first, happened after another blockade on Friday by about 200 university students from another prestigious university center, Sciences Po in Paris, also in protest against what they called “the genocide suffered by the Palestinian people.”

The Sorbonne, created in the 13th century, is an emblem of the university and French culture through which famous figures (Pierre and Marie Curie, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Louis Pasteur or Victor Hugo, among others) have passed as students or professors and was one of the main centers of the revolution of May 1968.

Jacques, a Sciences Po student who went to the Sorbonne on Monday in solidarity with the protest of his colleagues there, told EFE that the mobilization was a response “to the genocide that Israel is committing, with the complicity of (Joe) Biden and (Emmanuel) Macron.”

“We are going to close ranks against repression,” said the university student, alluding to police pressure in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the investigation for apology of open terrorism against a prominent left-wing leader, Mathilde Panot, for a controversial statement published after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The young man denied that there is a political manipulation of these mobilizations by Panot’s party, the Unsubmissive France (LFI), the main leftist formation in the Assembly.

“We are the young people who direct the protests. Whoever says otherwise is wrong. The majority are not affiliated with a specific party,” added Jacques, who promised to “continue with the mobilizations,” as at Columbia University, in the United States.

In addition to Panot, the Franco-Palestinian jurist Rima Hassan, a candidate for the European elections, has also been summoned by the police for advocacy of terrorism.

The controversial statement of the head of the LFI in the Assembly described the Hamas action of October 7 as “an offensive by Palestinian forces” and was paralleled with “the intensification of the Israeli occupation policy” in the Palestinian territories.

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International

Desertions in the Russian Army in Ukraine are growing, according to Kiev’s military intelligence

The number of desertions is growing in the ranks of the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine, according to information published on Monday by Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR).

“The desertions increase among the armed formations of the southern military district of the Russian occupation army,” reads the GUR note. “In total, more than 18,000 Russian soldiers have voluntarily left their military units in this district,” the text adds.

The territories occupied by Russia in the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporiyia and Kherson are included in the Southern Military District of Russia.

According to Kiev’s military intelligence, about 12,000 of these deserters belonged to the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Armed Forces, which participates in hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Information recently published by the Russian dissident media Mediazona estimated the total number of convictions for desertion handed down by Russian courts at 7,400, since the partial mobilization decreed by the Kremlin in September 2022.

They also alluded to the “record” number of Russians who evade military service and are asking for asylum in Western countries.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian General Staff today reported massive Russian casualties and losses in the last 24 hours, after a week of Russian advances in Donetsk that has led the Army to recognize that the situation has worsened on the east front.

According to the last military report, Russia suffered more than 1,300 casualties during the last day, a figure substantially higher than those reported in previous days.

In addition, Kiev claims to have destroyed 37 Russian artillery systems in the last 24 hours.

Today, the “most complicated situation” for Ukraine occurs in the areas of Pokrovsk and Kurajiv, northwest and southwest respectively of Avdivka, which was occupied by Russia last February.

Ukrainian troops in this area have delayed their defensive line in the face of constant Russian attacks.

The head of the Army, Oleksandr Sirski, has highlighted the intensity of the fighting in the Khasiv Yar area, a town located about ten kilometers west of the occupied Bajmut, which is, according to Kiev, a Russian priority objective.

Despite these advances, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, assured on Monday from Riyadh that the war against Ukraine launched two years ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “strategic debacle” for Russia.

“The last thing I’m going to say about it is that if you take a step back and analyze it, I think this aggression by Russia has been a strategic debacle for Russia,” said the head of American diplomacy at the special session of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which ends today in Riyadh.

For Blinken, “as a whole, Russia is weaker economically. He is weaker militarily, given the destruction of so many of his forces. And it is weaker diplomatically in much of the world, not in everything, but in a large part.”

In this sense, the Secretary of State pointed to China as a country that is not supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, but is providing “incalculable support” to its defense industry, through the sale of microelectronic products, machine tools and optics.

Blinken acknowledged that the increase in Russia’s production capacities is something that Europe is “deeply concerned about turning against it” once the war in Ukraine is over.

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