Above photo: People protest against interim President Boluarte on Independence Day. Gian Masko / Getty.
Independence for Whom?
Two centuries after independence, Peru remains shackled by empire. As the U.S.-backed Boluarte regime tightens its grip, the people take to the streets, demanding sovereignty, justice, and the return of their stolen democracy.
Two centuries after independence, Peru remains shackled by empire. As the U.S.-backed Boluarte regime tightens its grip, the people take to the streets, demanding sovereignty, justice, and the return of their stolen democracy.
On July 28th, Perú celebrated its 204th anniversary of the independence of Peru from Spanish colonial rule. Inside Congress, the most unpopular president in the world, Dina Boluarte, gave a five-hour-long speech in which she claimed, among other things, to launch an array of infrastructural projects to boost the economy. The scenes outside were a vastly different world. Protestors, delegations of farmworkers and families of martyrs and victims from the south, organizations representing neighborhood unions and others gathered in the center of the city to hear the message of ousted President Pedro Castillo, from the Penal Barbadillo prison, where he is a political prisoner held under pre-trial detention since December 7, 2022.
Since the US- backed right wing coup against democratically elected President Pedro Castillo, Peru has plunged into an insecurity crisis at the hands of paramilitary groups or so-called gangs used to justify ever-increasing militarization (under the objectives of the Department of Defense and SOUTHCOM). One of the speakers, a delegation participant from Puno, spoke to the divide between those who came from the south to defend their homeland, like her, and those who sell out their country for corporations to steal and plunder:
“Our voices, the voice of our president, even though we have to listen via a microphone – well, millions of Peruvians have wanted to listen to that presidential message. Do you know why, brothers? Because brother President Castillo, who was kidnapped, represents 33 million. Respect our votes! It is not out of fanaticism, it is not because we are ‘Castillistas,’ it is not because he represents a political class—but because he represents the entire people, dear brothers and sisters. In that understanding, we, from the original peoples, brothers and sisters, feel proud to have a cultural identity. (We) are brothers, not because we have the same father, but because we are Peruvians and we have the same culture, the same customs, the same struggle—the strength to defend our Peru. We do not destroy Peru, do not loot Peru, do not steal from Peru. We take care, we coexist with Mother Earth, we work the land so the people can eat. We raise our animals with love, and therefore, they cannot tell us that we came to the capital to destroy this country. Those who destroy are over there, those who steal are over there, those who loot are over there.”
Since the ouster of Castillo in this US-backed coup from the hard right-controlled Congress and Boluarte, the presence of US military personnel and bases has been increasing. This has meant not just the introduction of thousands of US troops, but extensive joint military cooperation and agreements. It’s hard not to see the encirclement of the Lithium Triangle by SOUTHCOM and the US as a deliberate attack on the sovereignty of the peoples of these resource-rich lands. The imperialist scramble for resources and precious rare earth minerals in this part of the region has spelt death for the indigenous peoples. Whether through repression after the ouster of the president who ran on nationalizing and industrializing the lithium of Puno, through the contamination of the rivers and lands and presence of heavy metals in the blood, or in the urban metropoles through the use of armed thugs or paramilitary groups that provide justification for further militarization and private mercenary “solutions”. US/western imperialism creates the problem, to then sell you the solution. And for the masses of Our Americas, it means war.
José Carlos Gutiérrez Sancho, (Apu Mallku) president of the Consejo de Autoridades Originarias in Puno, spoke to BAR on the role of U.S. imperialism in this struggle, the right to self-determination and the impacts on the health of people as a result of extractivism:
“Well, we know very well that outside our country there are great powers, there’s the United States that seek(s) to colonize or take control of other countries’ resources, in this case ours. They install military bases, have traitors to the homeland as politicians, right? They also have infiltrated agents within our Armed Forces, within the Navy, within the police, who obey a directive from over there to take away our resources so that people can’t go out to protest because when they come to take our resources and the people are organized, we won’t allow it. And we, the original (indigenous) peoples are very aware of this. We demand the right to self-determination, the right over our territories, over our natural resources. Foreign companies can’t come to plunder our resources if there’s no consultation with the population that lives there…This right to prior consultation we will claim, and it will also be retroactive because those companies that have contaminated our rivers, that have contaminated our lands, must compensate, there must be an international lawsuit to clean our rivers. There must be a lawsuit to heal our brothers and sisters living with (poisoning from) heavy metals. We have brothers across the country with heavy metals who don’t have a dignified life, don’t have a healthy life. As a consequence of what? Of the extractivism of these mining companies that have contaminated the rivers, of those oil companies that have contaminated our environment. So fight against them, we demand our rights as original peoples but we also call on the people, we call on the people so all fronts can unite. If we want Peru to move forward, the response must be sovereign.”
Two hundred and four years of so-called independence under a republic have not translated to self-determination for the people of Peru. Bourgeois democracy under a capitalist state governed by a neocolonial comprador class working at the behest of the local elite and US imperial masters has meant nothing good for the people of Peru, who live in the fourth most unequal country in the world. Particularly since the Monroe Doctrine and continued US doctrines like Operation Condor in the region that has been increasingly militarized for the purposes of US full-spectrum dominance. The war the US/EU/NATO Axis of Domination has waged and is waging against the peoples of Our Americas is only intensifying. Only a unified and coordinated anti-imperialist struggle can defeat this war and Make Our Americas a Zone of Peace.
Clau O’Brien Moscoso is an organizer and co-coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team. Originally from Barrios Altos, Lima, she grew up in Kearny, New Jersey. She attended college, lived, and organized in New York City for 15 years, and is now based in Lima, Perú, writing about Latin America and the Caribbean for the Black Agenda Report.
