By Luis Arce (World Socialist web Site)
The demonstration in Lima passes by police
A wave of mass demonstrations and marches swept across the whole of Peru Thursday in popular repudiation of the government’s massacre of Amazon Indians last week.
Indigenous people from the Amazon region, miners, Andean peasants, urban workers, including major contingents of teachers, construction workers and other sectors, were joined by university and high school students in what constituted the largest action yet against discredited three-year-old government of APRA party President Alan García.
The protests were met with police violence in various cities, including the capital of Lima.
The day of mass action expressed the outrage of masses of Peruvians over the García government’s ordering of a violent police attack June 5 against Amazon Indians who had been blockading the Fernando Belaúnde Terry highway near the northern city of Bagua. The violence left scores of people dead and hundreds wounded.
The official figures put out by the government claim that 24 police and only nine Indians were killed in the confrontation. Hospitals and religious organizations in the area, however, have reported a far higher civilian death toll, and eyewitnesses told of police burning the bodies of slain protesters and placing them in black bags and dumping them in the river. Many people remain missing. Some of the bodies that were recovered showed signs of being burned and repeatedly shot in the face after they were killed.
The demonstrators Thursday also demanded the repeal of two decrees—1090 y 1064—which set the terms for opening up the Peruvian Amazon for the exploitation of energy and mineral resources, as well as logging by transnational corporations. Marchers also called for the resignations of President Alan García, Prime Minister Yehude Simon and other members of his cabinet.
In an attempt to quell the growing popular dismay and anger over the Bagua massacre, the Peruvian Congress decided to suspend the decrees for an indefinite period. The demonstrators rejected this maneuver, demanding the outright repeal of the measures, which critics have charged are unconstitutional, because they violate regulations established by the International Labor Organization and were adopted without consultation with the indigenous people of the region.
Substantiating this claim, Peru’s Constitutional Court has accepted a case brought by the Public Defender’s Office charging that Decree 1064 is unconstitutional.
The APRA government is adamantly opposed to the repeal of the decrees, because they represent an integral part of the Free Trade Agreement signed with Washington. President García fears that the US could declare the treaty null and void, which would represent a debacle for the government’s right-wing economic policy.
In Lima more than 20,000 people began a peaceful march from the Plaza Dos de Mayo towards the congress and the government palace, the president’s residence. Among the march’s organizers were the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP), Sutep (the teachers union), student organizations and various left parties.
One of the Lima demonstrators sent the following description to the WSWS:
“At 2 pm, I arrived at Avenida Colmena at the corner of Tacna, which was heavily guarded by police. Suddenly, from Avenida Colmena, I heard the teachers of Sutep arriving.
WSWS for more