Opinion: two photos, two interpretations of events in Puno, show Peru is a very divided country.
Opinion: two photos, two interpretations of events in Puno, show Peru is a very divided country.
Two images, two worlds, and two paradigms, illustrate the current social conflict in Peru's Puno Region. The images were featured in two articles on Monday, February 20 about social and political unrest in the city of Puno by two major Peruvian newspapers.
In the first image, appearing in the Lima-based La República, men are lined up in rows, walking down a street dressed smartly in their best black suits wearing ties and black dress hats. Many have long white scarves around their necks. Behind them are women wearing matching long red dresses and blankets of the same color. They are also wearing matching black hats under Puno’s midday sun. These are Indigenous Aymara who are protesting what they see as racism and oppression by the national government in Lima led by President Dina Boluarte and the national Congress.
In the second image, from the Arequipa based regional paper Dario Sin Fronteras, a Peruvian Army color guard goose steps smartly in front of reviewing officers. The soldiers comprising the guard are dressed in combat fatigues with automatic weapons, long bayonets affixed, resting on their right shoulders. Behind them, a company of similarly attired soldiers is marching. The reviewing officers are at the foot of the steps leading to Puno’s Cathedral where, in ordinary times, the Feast of the "Virgen de la Candelaria” would be celebrated with religious processions and Indigenous folklore dances including the the Wifala de Asillo, the Ichu Carnival, the Tuntuna, the Khashua de Capachica, the Machu-tusuj, the Kcajelo, and the Pandilla Puneña.
Fear of 'terrucos'
The first photo accompanies an article in La República titled "Thousands of Aymara announce "civil war" if the Government continues sending soldiers to Puno." The tag line of the article reads, "This Monday, February 20, citizens of southern Puno resumed mobilization to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte. They also reported on the campaign 'We will return and we will be millions.'"
The article continues:
Thousands of aimaras[sic] announced "civil war" in case the government continues to send soldiers to their towns in Puno. This Monday, February 20, citizens of different provinces in the south of the altiplano region resumed their mobilizations to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte .
Around 20,000 aimaras have entered the capital of the region dressed in uniform: the men in suits and the women in skirts and blankets of the same color. This is a sign of organization and a demonstration of the collective decisions to continue the anti-government protests.
The Aymara population warned of their response to the possible sending of soldiers to different areas of Puno. They clarified that they will not let them enter to take control of their towns and that the only way out in that case would be a "civil war."
On the other hand, they reported on the campaign "We will return and we will be millions", through which they seek to return to the city of Lima as a whole to protest, and not only by delegations. With this modality, groups traveled and collected money, but now they would do it with coordination among the entire population. The protesters argued that the deaths cannot go unpunished.
The articule shows a profound distrust of the Indigenous movement driving much of the current protest against President Dina Boluarte and the Peruvian Congress. It unsettlingly echos the genocidal response against Indigenous Peruvians during the Internal Conflict in Peru from 1980 - 2000.
The term 'terruco' is a Peruvian neologism which originated from Quechua Ronderos during the Internal Conflict. Ronderos in Ayacucho used the term to describe communist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas during this period. Historian Carlos Aguire said that the -uco replaced the ending of the Spanish word terrorista by Quechua speakers since they typically terminate words with -uco. Today, the terms 'terruco' and 'senderista' continue to be carelessly used in Peru by right-wing politicians and their followers as a baseless attack to target left-wing, progressive, or Indigenous groups.
La República's article thus uses a photo of Aymara men and women, marching in their finest clothes for social and economic justice through constitutional reform to illustrate a perceived threat of a return to civil war by Indigenous terrorists.
Perhaps most concerning is that this article was published in the more moderate La República, and not in the more conservative national daily El Comercio or the right-wing television station Willax TV.
Army of occupation
The second picture, that of the army marching in the Plaza de Armas, appears in the Sin Fronteras article, "The first hoisting in Puno after protests." This article's tagline was, “The Unified Command of the Armed Forces and the Peruvian National Police (PNP) raised the national flag in the Plaza de Armas in the city of Puno. This was the first civic activity of the year.”
This article continues:
Since the restart of the indefinite strike against President Dina Boluarte on January 4, this type of event has been suspended.
Within this framework, the Unified Command raised the Peruvian, regional and Puno province flags. There were also representatives of the Air Force in Puno and the Navy. This activity, which began at around 8:00 a.m., was chaired by General Manuel Alarcón Elera and PNP Puno General David Villanueva; however, no civil authority was found.
The last phrase, "however, no civil authority was found", is important. Under the current State of Emergency in Peru, affecting seven southern Regions, Lima and Callao, Puno is the only Region in Peru where "the control of internal order is in charge of the Armed Forces, incorporating the PNP (...) in the area declared in a State of Emergency." Thus, the significance of the lack of any local authorities at the flag raising ceremony.
The article continues with a quote from former Puno Mayor Wilber Apaza Díaz: "The highest authority is the governor followed by the prefect of Puno, the fact that the police and armed forces are without the authority to honor the National Pavilion is a sign of division of powers." The ex-mayor "considered that this activity is a clear sign that there is an absence of popular power, due to the fact that the Government would be outside the demands of the population."
Puno's Regional Governor, Richard Hancco, has described armed forces' control of the Region as "disproportionate."
The second photo depicts far more than a patriotic flag raising, it illustrates a show of force by the Army of a distant central government that does not represent the interests nor the will of Puno's inhabitants.
Racial disparities
One of the keys to understanding Peru's current social unrest is the country's ethnic composition.
Peru is a multiethnic, multicultural, country, which means that its people come from many diverse backgrounds. These backgrounds influence views of the country's history; from Indigenous empires to Spanish conquest, the Bolivarian revolution and independence, to the Internal Conflict and the present day.
Peru’s urban dwellers are mostly a combination of Amerindian (mostly Quechua) and European (mostly Spaniard) ancestry. Residents in urban areas of certain Regions, including Lima, La Libertad, Callao, San Martín, Cajamarca, Piura, Lambayeque, and Arequipa, tend to show a stronger European inheritance. These people comprise about 60% of Peru’s total population. In Spanish, people with this mixed identity are often referred to as “Mestizo”, but this term was part of the caste classification during colonial times and has racist connotations.
Indigenous peoples, (in Spanish, the preferred terms are primeros pueblos (first peoples) or pueblos originarios (original towns)), including Quechuas (5.1 million people) and Aymaras (548,000), comprise about 30% of the country’s population. Both ethnic groups have distinct cultural identities and languages. The Quechua peoples are also diverse tracing their ancestry not only back to the Incas (particularly in the Cusco Region), but also the Huanca (in the Huancayo and Junin Regions) and the Chanca (in the Huancavelica, Ayacucho, and Apurímac Regions). Most Aymara live in the Lake Titicaca basin and comprise the primary ethnic identity in the Puno Region.
Only about six percent of Peru’s population are European descendants and can trace their ancestry to the Spanish colonizers and other Europeans who arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, this ethnic group dominates Peru’s media and popular culture, including as television news presenters, popular musicians, and as actors in Peruvian movies and soap operas (novellas in Spanish). Most important, Peruvians of European descent have historically controlled, and currently control, the national government.
Peru's racial disparities begin before birth with higher levels of infant mortality among primeros pueblos, lack access to education, lack of investment in rural infrastructure, and few economic opportunities outside major cities. Amnesty International's February 16, 2023, report on the protests found that while "regions with majority Indigenous populations represent only 13% of Peru’s total population, they account for 80% of the total deaths registered since the crisis began. The evidence suggests that the authorities acted with a marked racist bias, targeting populations that have historically been discriminated against." (Emphasis added)
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