“The police dragged me, kicked me and one of them crushed my head with his foot while they called me terruca!” (Wayka [Spanish] - 1/26/2023)
Several people report having been physically and verbally assaulted by the Peruvian National Police (PNP) after the arrest suffered on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UMNSM), on January 21. These are the testimonies that reveal serious abuses.
By Ghiomara Rafaele
“They grabbed me and my partner by the hair. The police began to drag me all over the ground, on the ground they began to kick me and one of them crushed my head with his foot while they called me terruca”, narrates Flor Susaya, a young woman from Ayacucho who was detained -without a court order or presence of the Ministry Public- with another 193 people by the Peruvian National Police at the facilities of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
Flor is 18 years old and lives day by day with injustice, poverty, and inequality in Ayacucho. But the murder of ten fellow Ayacuchanos during protests made her come to Lima. The 10-hour trip had only one purpose: to request the resignation of the regime of President Dina Boluarte. It was 9:30 in the morning on Saturday, January 21, when a large police contingent broke through Gate 3 of the University with an armored car. Flor was near Gate 1 when she heard her classmates yell that the police were already inside.
Fear invaded her and she grabbed the only thing at hand: her backpack. She tried to leave through Gate 1 of the campus with her four classmates. When she got to the door, a group of police intervened. They began to pull, insult, and recriminate them: what are they coming for? "Terrucos, reds!". These words made a deep impression on one of them and he complained to them because he felt insulted.
“They insulted us, and my partner felt defamed. He complained to them, and they began to hit him, kicking him,” recalls Flor.
While the insults did not stop, one of the officers grabbed Flor by the head and began to drag her along the ground, also causing multiple injuries to her face and body.
"The police dragged me along the ground, they started kicking me and one of them crushed my head with his foot while they called me terruca!"
Another policeman began to rummage through Flor's things, took her backpack from her and emptied the contents. Among her clothes and his personal belongings, he found a flag and told him: "Terruca, you come looking for trouble." Flor was not the only one who received insults that day.
"Now, well, redheads, now start throwing stones," was what Gabriel Dávila, an ex-soldier, heard while one of the police officers hit him on the head. He was lying face down with his hands tied behind his back and his face on the ground. Gabriel was under some stairs in UMNSM's Social Sciences Department when he began to hear the explosions of tear gas bombs.
“The men went ahead so that the women gained time to escape. We started looking for exits, but they (the PNP) surrounded us. We hid behind some steps and jumped to the first floor. I saw how several of my companions were beaten”, Gabriel narrates.
The PNP played Fujimori's song "El Baile del Chino"
Gabriel had traveled from Arequipa to Lima with a delegation of seventy people who, outraged by the assassinations by Dina Boluarte government, had come to the capital to show their rejection. The reception point was the UNMSM, two days after his arrival he would be arrested for the alleged crimes of "aggravated usurpation, damage and aggravated robbery." But the National Prosecutor's Office or the Ombudsman's Office would not be present in that arrest.
“We were all knelt down and thrown to the ground. I wanted to see what was happening and raised my face. That's when they started throwing lapos (punches) at my head. They yelled at me not to be looking,” he recalls.
Gabriel decided to stop looking. Minutes later they transferred him to the headquarters of the Police Investigation Operations Center – DIRINCRI. During the journey, the insults did not stop, there they were called "terrorists" and forced to listen to a song that did not get out of their minds. The Police decided that this trip would be accompanied by the 2000 campaign music of the dictator Alberto Fujimori: "El baile del chino".
One of the videos shared on social networks that shows the way in which the citizens intervened in San Marcos were treated. (source: diffusion)
Jennifer Alert also heard that song and believes it was to seek a negative reaction. “They began to make us feel bad or look for a negative reaction towards them. I remember very well that a colleague from Puno was told, when her money was seized, “ah, have they paid you? How much have they paid you? Ah, they deserve it for burning the building in Plaza San Martín”.
Jennifer had traveled in the Arequipa entourage and had been detained with Gabriel. Both shared the same space in the Criminal Investigation Directorate (DIRINCRI) along with four other people until Gabriel, who tried to defend her, was transferred to one of the cells.
“I began to cry out of fear, and I felt outraged, they began to separate us based on physical features. He (Gabriel) wanted to defend us, he told the police not to disrespect us and they said: we must slap him, so he doesn't throw stones again, we'd better put him in jail,” Jennifer recalls.
Gabriel was put in one of the three cells. He smelled urine, with the damp walls and cardboard impossible to cover the hardness of the floor. Images that circulated on the networks showed the rudeness of these 3'×5' spaces, where many citizens are seen crowded into unsanitary spaces.
After almost 12 hours, they managed to get morsel of food, as did Ramón Arce, a citizen of Pacaycasa, Ayacucho, who came to Lima out of indignation at the murder of Peruvians during the protests.
“They [the police] were never present when we needed them the most, but when we were in San Marcos, having our breakfast, they appeared there and beat me,” says Ramón.
According to various witnesses, from a helicopter that was flying over the San Marcos facilities, they began to launch tear gas canisters. People began to run terrified. Ramón observed something else: the police fired three shots into the air and addressed the people with profanity. Between those insults they began to reduce them and lie face down. Ramón heard that they were told: "Now may Abimael (Guzmán) save you, now may Gonzalo save you (President Gonzalo was how Abimael was also known)." Ramón felt insulted and raised his head. He saw how the police began to hit an elderly woman with an iron.
“I did not like how they had her; she was an older lady. That lady could be her mom and they wouldn't want to be treated that way. When I reacted, they took me wide with a stick in my leg and in my left arm,” he said.
For the lawyer Carlos Rivera of the Legal Defense Institute (IDL), in an interview given to a national media, the San Marcos has been an illegal and arbitrary detention.
With the days, more testimonies and videos shared on networks are coming to light in which beatings of older women are seen, indiscriminate use of tear gas, entry to the University residence by the PNP, destruction of the infrastructure of Gate 3, despite the fact that it was open, the presence of ex-soldiers who tried to use stones to damage private property and the refusal of the Police to allow lawyers to enter for legal proceedings.
Despite all the outrages committed in the Dean of America, Flor, Gabriel, Jennifer, and Ramón do not intend to give up the protests, nor are they afraid. The violent events experienced on the San Marcos campus motivate them to continue with more strength.
“I am not going to give up on the march. I'm going out today. I have come out of that jail strengthened. I have not harmed anyone; I have not committed any crime. They have abused my integrity, my person, they have beaten me”, is the last thing Ramón said before saying goodbye.
Tags: #Lima #Protests #UNMSM #PNP #Terruco
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