In a televised speech shortly before midnight on Monday, Castillo announced a curfew from 2 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, arguing that the measure “would protect the fundamental rights of all people.” Castillo said the curfew was a response to “violent actions by some groups to prevent free passage” on the streets in and out of the capital, home to about a third of Peru’s 33 million people. But the move has been widely criticized as excessive and improvised and as an indication of Castillo’s increasingly shaky grip on power. In just eight months in office, he has survived two referral attempts and has shaken four cabinets and an unprecedented number of ministers. The teacher from a peasant family narrowly won the election last year with the support of the rural poor. Now many of his former supporters, including farmers and transport workers, are leading the protests in their second week as the government tries to cut prices. Peru is not the only country in South America where the war in Ukraine has a political and social impact. Brazil’s far-right president Zaire Bolsonaro and his allies are trying to use the conflict to speed up the passage of highly controversial legislation that would allow commercial mining in indigenous lands. “This crisis between Ukraine and Russia … created a good opportunity for us,” Bolsonaro said last month, arguing that potash reserves in indigenous protected areas needed to be exploited following Russia’s decision to suspend the export of fertilizers needed. desperately the agricultural sector of Brazil. Experts reject such a logic, noting that only a small percentage of Brazil’s potash reserves lie beneath the indigenous regions. “It’s a pretext – an excuse,” said Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a network of environmental groups opposed to the law. “What Bolsonaro is doing is taking advantage of a situation to create a false argument and speed up the passage of a bill driven by other interests, which includes the desire to remove these lands from indigenous communities and privatize them,” he added. Astrini. . Thousands of indigenous activists are gathering in the Brazilian capital this week for a 10-day protest camp designed in part to persuade members of Congress to block mining legislation. “We will not back down,” one of their leaders, Sônia Guajajara, said on Monday as representatives of 200 of Brazil’s 305 indigenous peoples began arriving in Brasilia. Castillo’s ban on circulation in Peru has sparked controversy as it falls on the 30th anniversary of the infamous “coup d’etat” or “auto-goal” when imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori ousted Congress in 1992 and assumed extraordinary powers. tanks and soldiers on the streets. Peruvian President Pedro Castillo addresses the nation as he imposes a curfew in the capital Lima. Photo: Jhonel Rodriguez Robles / Presidency of Peru / Reuters The Peruvian ombudsman has called on the government to lift the unconstitutional and “absolutely disproportionate” ban on circulation. At least four people were killed in demonstrations that spread from the rural Andes to the capital. On Monday, protesters burned tolls and clashed with police near Ika, about 300 kilometers south of Lima. Unrest erupted last week as farmers and truck drivers blocked roads to Lima, causing food prices to plummet. Inflation in Peru reached a 26-year high on Friday with consumer prices rising 1.48% last month. Over the weekend, the government responded by trying to cut fuel prices by waiving taxes. Peru – which imports 1.2 million tonnes of fertilizers a year – has declared a state of emergency for its agricultural sector due to rising fertilizer prices caused by Western sanctions on Russia, a major exporter of soil nutrients.
