Kiraz Janicke/Esvieta Topovich - Peru en Movimiento/La Primera
April 1, 2010 - Jailed leaders of the clandestine United Police Union of Peru (SUPP) have called for a nation-wide strike by the Peruvian National Police (PNP) on April 5 to demand salary increases, which have remained unchanged for 20 years.
From their prison cells the leaders of the underground union called on police officers around the country to stay at home that day in order to make the Alan Garcia government understand the profoud levels of discontent that exists in the police force.
"One day off work is not a crime nor a serious infraction," SUPP general secretary Richard Ortega Quispe said in a statement from the Pre-Police School of Anti-Narcotic Affairs in Ayacucho, where he is being held.
Similarly SUPP organisation secretary, Edward Casas Diburcio, who has been on hunger strike for 18 days, sent a letter from his bed at the Police Hospital, where he was transferred on Tuesday from the PNP Technical School in Puente Piedra, Lima.
Taking a day off work is only a minor offense under Law No. 29,356, of the police disciplinary regulations, which is punishable by a warning or a maximum of six days in jail, Diburcio explained.
Both leaders said that they and their colleague Abel Hallasi Zarate, held in Cusco, had been imprisoned unjustly. In addition to their immediate release, the police of the country are demanding an end to the politics of deceit from the government, a salary increase and the re-boost of the "broken" police pension fund.
Ortega Quispe said President Alan Garcia, Premier Javier Velásquez, the ministers of Interior, Finance and Defence and senior police commanders would be responsible for any "undesirable" events may arise from the lack of police on the streets.
He also said businessmen, bankers, transport companies, traders and the general public would have to take their own precautions to prevent their property and assets being affected by the lack of security.
The general coordinator of the SUPP, Wilson Vilcaromero, who began a hunger strike today, also held Garcia responsible for what may happen in the streets.
The SUPP has 30 thousand members, out of a total of 90 thousand active police officers in the PNP Vilcarmero said.
Raul Herrera Soto, president of the Retired Police Officers Federation (Federpol) which represents 15 thousand members, announced that from early Monday morning, retired police officers will take over bridges, highways and roads to support the strike by active police officers.
The SUPP clashed previously with the Garcia government over the Bagua Massacre of indigneous protesters on June 5 last year, where 23 police officers were killed and unknown number of indigenous protesters were dissappeared.
In a statement shortly after the massacre the SUPP sent condolences “to the spouses, children and families of our comrades in arms, who were members of the clandestine police union, as well as to the families of our native brothers, to all of those fallen in Bagua; those in uniform, who were following orders of repression by the APRA [Garcia’s party] government,… and the natives defending the land and resources of the jungle, which belong to all Peruvians, in the face of their imminent privatisation."
“The only aim of the APRA government is to defend their sell-out politics and to sell off the country, which the most conscious uniformed workers [the police] reject, repudiate and condemn.”
Showing posts with label Strikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strikes. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Peru: Thousands protest to demand earthquake reconstruction funds
The aftermath of the earthquake (Foro Ica)
By Kiraz Janicke
Thousands of residents of Ica, Pisco and Chincha marched through their respective cities on Monday as part of a regional strike called by the Ica section of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, the Civil Construction union and Sutep [teachers union], among others, to demand the delivery of reconstruction funds and an audit of domestic and international donations more than two years after a 7.9 rictor earthquake devastated the region.
Many of the regions residents are still living in tents and say their cities look like they have been bombed. Protesters say corrupt government officials have embezzled donations and government relief money destined for reconstruction efforts.
Protest organisers denounced that more than 25 scaffolding workers were arrested during the protests in a clash with the National Police and that APRA [President Alan Garcia's political party] leaders intervened to pressure the local judiciary and law enforcement bodies to repress the protests and keep the workers in jail. In particular, they dennounced local APRA leader and COFOPRI official, Erick Garcia.
Street vendors, housewives, students and truck drivers also participated in the protests in the region, which is often promoted by the García government as an example of economic growth and the sucess of neoliberal policies. The earthquake brought to light the lies of these statements and the failure of a mining boom that has privileged only a tiny minority the protesters said.
The organizers said their would be further protests such as an indefinite strike in the coming days until their demands are met.
The CGTP called on the government to immediately release the 25 workers and attend to the demands of the eathquake victims who are still suffering the ravages of disaster and the APRA regime's inability to resolve the problems.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Peru: Social movement confidence grows
Karl Cosser, Lima
Street protests and blockades occurred throughout Peru on July 8, in the middle of a three day strike against the neoliberal policies of President Alan Garcia.
The protests follow on from the intense struggle for the Amazon — between indigenous communities and multinational corporations supported by the government. Although this struggle has been very hard on the indigenous communities, including an unknown death toll at the hands of security forces, it is a great example of what can be achieved with great effort and solidarity.
Through relentless struggle, the Garcia government’s decrees, which allowed oil and gas giants to exploit the resources in the Amazon on indigenous land, were repealed.
I witnessed an example of this struggle at a June 11 demonstration of about 15,000 in Lima in solidarity with the Amazon indigenous people. The protest included various unions, student groups and even a left-wing Christian group which considers Jesus Christ the first revolutionary.
There was a lot of energy and passion as we marched through the streets of Lima chanting “la selva no se vende” (the jungle is not for sale). Banners and graffiti on the way called Garcia an assassin for the massacre that occurred in Bagua, a town in the Amazon region.
The demonstration reached a fever pitch as it approached the police blockade several blocks from Congress and the presidential palace. The percussion from the Amazonian indigenous contingent grew more intense.
The police then violently repressed the demonstration, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd. They assaulted demonstrators with batons.
The attack was indiscriminate. Protesters as old as 70 were badly affected by tear gas, having difficulty breathing.
In self-defence, some demonstrators responded with sticks and stones, which the police threw back at the crowd. One molotov cocktail was thrown.
Most people ran from the repression — possibly remembering with fear the massacre in the Amazon.
However, once the tear gas cleared, many returned to the police barricades to continue the protest in solidarity with many other demonstrations and blockades occurring across Peru that day against the decrees.
Two days later, there was a “pro-democracy rally” in support of Garcia. The right-wing demonstration was escorted by police past Congress — facing no repression whatsoever.
The hypocrisy of “promoting democracy” by supporting such a brutally repressive government is ridiculously obvious.
The private media in Peru are supporting the government. It repeats police reports that the nine civilians and 11 police were killed at Bagua.
However, it has been independently reported that many more people are still missing and more than 150 civilians were injured — mostly by bullets.
One survivor of the Bagua massacre was treated for eight bullet wounds. He and many others were shot at while running away from police.
In the face of such repression, through relentless struggle involving many strikes, blockades and demonstrations, the movement forced the government to repeal the pro-corporate decrees.
This is an example to the rest of the world what can be achieved through people power — including for the struggles of Indigenous people in Australia.
The confidence gained by this victory is increasingly obvious as protests and blockades against other neoliberal polices continue across the country. The July 8 national day of protests and strikes is just the latest.
The demands of the July 8 demonstrations included: ending the criminalisation of social protests; the reinstatement of seven Congresspeople from left-nationalist Ollanta Humala’s Peruvian Nationalist Party suspended for staging a protest in Congress against the decrees; respect for the right of self-determination of indigenous communities; sacking Prime Minister Yehude Simon and the rest of the cabinet; and granting the demands of the transport workers’ union to repeal an increase in traffic fines.
In Lima, various contingents held their own protests, occupying several streets, before converging on the Dos de Mayo Plaza.
The various contingents included members of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), transport workers unions, the teachers union, an indigenous contingent, students and various social and political organisations.
The protest, about 8000-strong, was downplayed by the mainstream newspaper Peru 21. The paper featured an aerial photograph of the plaza on its front page taken after several contingents had already marched off.
The shot was almost certainly taken from the police helicopter that circled above the crowd, demonstrating the use of police resources for political propaganda.
Days before, masked police union members announced that they would go on strike, partially over the police deaths at Bagua. They refused to give a date for their strike for “security reasons”.
Unfortunately, the police turned up for work on July 8, along with the armed forces.
Protesters carried banners featuring caricatures of Garcia as a vampire with the victims of the Bagua massacre in his arms. There were many indigenous Tahuantinsuyu flags with the mosaic of colours representing the solidarity between the many indigenous groups of the Amazon.
After several speeches, including by Humala demanding the sacking of Garcia’s cabinet, protesters began marching towards central Lima.
Demonstrators were divided several times within just a few blocks by the extraordinary numbers of riot police armed with batons, shields, grappling hooks, tear gas bombs and guns. Police carried automatic weapons with live rounds and rubber bullets.
There were also water cannon trucks and mounted police — although the inability of the police to control the horses proved more entertaining than anything else for the demonstrators.
Protesters defended themselves against police attempts to break the demonstration up, managing to break through police lines a few times before the sheer numbers of police broke up the protest into several groups.
Towards the end of the protest, a small number of young people engaged in passive resistance. Police chased them through the streets of Lima, with the protesters outnumbered by 10-1.
Then, for no reason, police fired tear gas at the demonstrators. This affected everyone nearby, including shopkeepers with nothing to do with the protest.
By resorting to putting the military on the streets to repress protests, the Garcia government reveals itself to be on the ropes.
As it continues to deny people’s right to social protest, the protest movement continues to grow in strength — building on solidarity between unions, indigenous peoples, campesinos (peasants), students and many other sectors.
Republished from Green Left Weekly
Street protests and blockades occurred throughout Peru on July 8, in the middle of a three day strike against the neoliberal policies of President Alan Garcia.
The protests follow on from the intense struggle for the Amazon — between indigenous communities and multinational corporations supported by the government. Although this struggle has been very hard on the indigenous communities, including an unknown death toll at the hands of security forces, it is a great example of what can be achieved with great effort and solidarity.
Through relentless struggle, the Garcia government’s decrees, which allowed oil and gas giants to exploit the resources in the Amazon on indigenous land, were repealed.
I witnessed an example of this struggle at a June 11 demonstration of about 15,000 in Lima in solidarity with the Amazon indigenous people. The protest included various unions, student groups and even a left-wing Christian group which considers Jesus Christ the first revolutionary.
There was a lot of energy and passion as we marched through the streets of Lima chanting “la selva no se vende” (the jungle is not for sale). Banners and graffiti on the way called Garcia an assassin for the massacre that occurred in Bagua, a town in the Amazon region.
The demonstration reached a fever pitch as it approached the police blockade several blocks from Congress and the presidential palace. The percussion from the Amazonian indigenous contingent grew more intense.
The police then violently repressed the demonstration, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd. They assaulted demonstrators with batons.
The attack was indiscriminate. Protesters as old as 70 were badly affected by tear gas, having difficulty breathing.
In self-defence, some demonstrators responded with sticks and stones, which the police threw back at the crowd. One molotov cocktail was thrown.
Most people ran from the repression — possibly remembering with fear the massacre in the Amazon.
However, once the tear gas cleared, many returned to the police barricades to continue the protest in solidarity with many other demonstrations and blockades occurring across Peru that day against the decrees.
Two days later, there was a “pro-democracy rally” in support of Garcia. The right-wing demonstration was escorted by police past Congress — facing no repression whatsoever.
The hypocrisy of “promoting democracy” by supporting such a brutally repressive government is ridiculously obvious.
The private media in Peru are supporting the government. It repeats police reports that the nine civilians and 11 police were killed at Bagua.
However, it has been independently reported that many more people are still missing and more than 150 civilians were injured — mostly by bullets.
One survivor of the Bagua massacre was treated for eight bullet wounds. He and many others were shot at while running away from police.
In the face of such repression, through relentless struggle involving many strikes, blockades and demonstrations, the movement forced the government to repeal the pro-corporate decrees.
This is an example to the rest of the world what can be achieved through people power — including for the struggles of Indigenous people in Australia.
The confidence gained by this victory is increasingly obvious as protests and blockades against other neoliberal polices continue across the country. The July 8 national day of protests and strikes is just the latest.
The demands of the July 8 demonstrations included: ending the criminalisation of social protests; the reinstatement of seven Congresspeople from left-nationalist Ollanta Humala’s Peruvian Nationalist Party suspended for staging a protest in Congress against the decrees; respect for the right of self-determination of indigenous communities; sacking Prime Minister Yehude Simon and the rest of the cabinet; and granting the demands of the transport workers’ union to repeal an increase in traffic fines.
In Lima, various contingents held their own protests, occupying several streets, before converging on the Dos de Mayo Plaza.
The various contingents included members of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), transport workers unions, the teachers union, an indigenous contingent, students and various social and political organisations.
The protest, about 8000-strong, was downplayed by the mainstream newspaper Peru 21. The paper featured an aerial photograph of the plaza on its front page taken after several contingents had already marched off.
The shot was almost certainly taken from the police helicopter that circled above the crowd, demonstrating the use of police resources for political propaganda.
Days before, masked police union members announced that they would go on strike, partially over the police deaths at Bagua. They refused to give a date for their strike for “security reasons”.
Unfortunately, the police turned up for work on July 8, along with the armed forces.
Protesters carried banners featuring caricatures of Garcia as a vampire with the victims of the Bagua massacre in his arms. There were many indigenous Tahuantinsuyu flags with the mosaic of colours representing the solidarity between the many indigenous groups of the Amazon.
After several speeches, including by Humala demanding the sacking of Garcia’s cabinet, protesters began marching towards central Lima.
Demonstrators were divided several times within just a few blocks by the extraordinary numbers of riot police armed with batons, shields, grappling hooks, tear gas bombs and guns. Police carried automatic weapons with live rounds and rubber bullets.
There were also water cannon trucks and mounted police — although the inability of the police to control the horses proved more entertaining than anything else for the demonstrators.
Protesters defended themselves against police attempts to break the demonstration up, managing to break through police lines a few times before the sheer numbers of police broke up the protest into several groups.
Towards the end of the protest, a small number of young people engaged in passive resistance. Police chased them through the streets of Lima, with the protesters outnumbered by 10-1.
Then, for no reason, police fired tear gas at the demonstrators. This affected everyone nearby, including shopkeepers with nothing to do with the protest.
By resorting to putting the military on the streets to repress protests, the Garcia government reveals itself to be on the ropes.
As it continues to deny people’s right to social protest, the protest movement continues to grow in strength — building on solidarity between unions, indigenous peoples, campesinos (peasants), students and many other sectors.
Republished from Green Left Weekly
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Protests, blockades and strikes against the policies of Alan García
AFP, DPA, Reuters
Lima, July 8 – Thousands of workers marched today in Peru to demand changes in the economic policy of the government after stopping work and joining a day of protest that includes regional strikes and blockades of highways – one day after president Alan Garcia announced he would name a new ministerial cabinet under pressure from social conflicts.
Garcia faced the biggest protests in June with the mobilization of indigenous peoples from the Amazon in rejection of his policies of exploiting the land of the traditional owners, that resulted in the death of 24 police and 10 Indians [independent reports put the deaths of indigenous protestors at closer to 40 and scores disappeared] and forced the government to retreat on this policy and repeal the laws that favored the transnationals.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that the government of Nicaragua has granted political asylum to Servando and Saúl Puerta Peña, indigenous leaders who sought refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima on Monday.
Currently throughout the country 226 active social conflicts exist, according to the Ombudsman. Transport workers and teachers stopped work this Wednesday and joined the march of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGPT) – the biggest union federation in the country – during which it was reported some parts of Lima were blockaded and then cleared by the police.
In total 156 people were arrested for blocking arterial roads in Lima and other cities, where they also burned tyres, police general Miguel Hidalgo said.
Interior minister Mercedes Cabanillas said that some 32 thousand police and 6 thousand soldiers had been deployed to oversee order in the country. Police and soldiers guarded plazas, public companies, strategic routes, bridges, bus stations and some airports throughout the country.
However, the authorities said the strike was weaker in Lima and recognized that in the interior of the country there would be some problems.
A sector of transport workers began a 48-hour strike on a national scale that partially affected activities in the capital, but was felt much more strongly in the provinces according to police reports.
What is necessary is a change in the economic policy of the country to reduce poverty and generate employment, not just a change in personnel declared Mario Huamán, president of the CGTP, which convoked the marches.
School activities also remained paralyzed by a national 24-hour strike decreed by the United Union of Education Workers (SUTEP), and respected by some 300 thousand state teachers according to the union.
In addition a second day of a 72-hour strike in various regions of the country was carried out.
In the south Andean city of Cusco, where there were some violent clashes, the Peru Rail company, suspended trains to Machu Picchu, the principle tourist attraction to the country, as a measure of protection for foreign tourists.
Protesters also blocked roads in Cusco, as in Puno, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurímac, as well as in the northern cities of Tumbes and Chiclayo, in the north Andean city of Hauraz and in Pucallpam (northeast), where there were attempts at looting stores.
Translated by Kiraz Janicke, Republished from La Jornada
Lima, July 8 – Thousands of workers marched today in Peru to demand changes in the economic policy of the government after stopping work and joining a day of protest that includes regional strikes and blockades of highways – one day after president Alan Garcia announced he would name a new ministerial cabinet under pressure from social conflicts.
Garcia faced the biggest protests in June with the mobilization of indigenous peoples from the Amazon in rejection of his policies of exploiting the land of the traditional owners, that resulted in the death of 24 police and 10 Indians [independent reports put the deaths of indigenous protestors at closer to 40 and scores disappeared] and forced the government to retreat on this policy and repeal the laws that favored the transnationals.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that the government of Nicaragua has granted political asylum to Servando and Saúl Puerta Peña, indigenous leaders who sought refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima on Monday.
Currently throughout the country 226 active social conflicts exist, according to the Ombudsman. Transport workers and teachers stopped work this Wednesday and joined the march of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGPT) – the biggest union federation in the country – during which it was reported some parts of Lima were blockaded and then cleared by the police.
In total 156 people were arrested for blocking arterial roads in Lima and other cities, where they also burned tyres, police general Miguel Hidalgo said.
Interior minister Mercedes Cabanillas said that some 32 thousand police and 6 thousand soldiers had been deployed to oversee order in the country. Police and soldiers guarded plazas, public companies, strategic routes, bridges, bus stations and some airports throughout the country.
However, the authorities said the strike was weaker in Lima and recognized that in the interior of the country there would be some problems.
A sector of transport workers began a 48-hour strike on a national scale that partially affected activities in the capital, but was felt much more strongly in the provinces according to police reports.
What is necessary is a change in the economic policy of the country to reduce poverty and generate employment, not just a change in personnel declared Mario Huamán, president of the CGTP, which convoked the marches.
School activities also remained paralyzed by a national 24-hour strike decreed by the United Union of Education Workers (SUTEP), and respected by some 300 thousand state teachers according to the union.
In addition a second day of a 72-hour strike in various regions of the country was carried out.
In the south Andean city of Cusco, where there were some violent clashes, the Peru Rail company, suspended trains to Machu Picchu, the principle tourist attraction to the country, as a measure of protection for foreign tourists.
Protesters also blocked roads in Cusco, as in Puno, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurímac, as well as in the northern cities of Tumbes and Chiclayo, in the north Andean city of Hauraz and in Pucallpam (northeast), where there were attempts at looting stores.
Translated by Kiraz Janicke, Republished from La Jornada
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