The president of Peru, the leftist Pedro Castillo, announced this Tuesday afternoon the early end of the daytime curfew that he had decreed hours earlier in Lima and the neighboring port of Callao to contain protests.
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“From the moment we are going to leave this immobility without effect [toque de queda]. It is up to the Peruvian people to call for calm”Castillo said sitting next to the president of Congress, the opposition María del Carmen Alva.
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Military and police patrols guarded the half-empty streets of Lima on Tuesday, enforcing the daytime curfew decreed by Castillo, which was repudiated by broad sectors of the population, including leftist leaders.
“The measures that are taken, like the ones that were taken yesterday [lunes]They are not to go against the people, but to protect the lives of our compatriots”said Castillo, who is facing the first protest of his government, which began eight months ago.
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The announcement of the end of the curfew, which was to last until midnight, was greeted with cheers by hundreds of protesters gathered near the Congress building and in other parts of Lima, saying they had shaken hands with the president, journalists from the AFP.
Shops were closed, classes suspended and public transport was almost absent in the capital and the neighboring port of Callaowhere 10 million people live.
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The people of Lima were surprised by the measure, announced around midnight on Monday by Castillo on television, since the disturbances that day had been focused and the most serious took place in the provinces, not in the capital.
The President of the Judiciary of Peru, Elvia Barrios, yesterday asked the ruler Pedro Castillo to urgently convene a session of the Council of State to draw consensus and alleviate the crisis facing the countrywhich led the president to decree a curfew in Lima and Callao.
Through an official letter, Barrios expressed his “concern about the complex situation” that Peru is experiencing and asked the president for a meeting so that the state powers can dialogue and articulate actions to “achieve greater stability.”
“Do not allow those of us who make up the Council of State to do so without the participation of the Executive Power. Crises are the responsibilities of their rulers; therefore, it is time that we add and not divide”, reads the letter.
The strike, which carriers have been complying with for eight days in protest at the rise in fuel prices, provoked Castillo’s unexpected decision to establish a state of emergency and a curfew that affected 11 million people, a third of the country’s population.
At this time, thousands of people, from different points throughout the Peruvian capital, are heading to Plaza San Martin, in the center of the city, to demand the resignation of President Pedro Castillo. All of Peru to the streets. pic.twitter.com/SQp2tbV02H
– Agustín Antonetti (@agusantonetti) April 5, 2022
Yesterday morning, the Ombudsman’s Office filed a “habeas corpus” appeal for the Justice to repeal the order. However, the Executive decided to lift it after hard civil and political pressure.
The announcement of curfew came a week after Castillo, a 52-year-old rural teacher, was saved from being impeached by Congress, where radical opponents accuse him of “lack of direction” and allowing corruption in his environment. It also coincided with the 30th anniversary of the self-coup d’état perpetrated by now-imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori on April 5, 1992.
Disapproval of Castillo stands at 66 percent, according to an Ipsos poll from March.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE