On December 15, on the outskirts of the city of Ayacucho, members of the Peruvian national army fired at civilians as helicopters hovered overhead. This attack was the response to a strike and peaceful national mobilization for the coup d’état on December 7, which deposed President Pedro Castillo.
That day, hundreds of university students, merchants, street vendors, peasants, and activists had gathered in the center of Ayacucho to march toward the airport and protest Castillo’s dismissal.
As the protesters approached the air terminal, members of the armed forces opened fire on them. The shots from the helicopters were the most lethal.
The consequence of this action by the army: 10 people dead and 72 wounded, according to official figures from the office of the ombudsman, and until yesterday at least six of the wounded were fighting for their lives in hospitals in Ayacucho and Lima. Autopsies of those killed show that six died from gunshot wounds to the chest, the youngest was only 15 years old.
Reuters recounted the death of one of these victims: Édgar Prado, 51, was shot while trying to help an injured person.
The extreme violence in the response of the security forces to the anti-coup protests was condemned throughout Peru and, in view of this, a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) visited the nation between December 20 and 22 to collect testimonies from victims and local human rights organizations.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen relatives, residents of Ayacucho, organizers and a couple of independent journalists – including me – waited. People told us about the tragedies of that December 15th.
This is not going to show you on the news
told me Carmen (who asked me not to use his real name), while showing me a video on his phone of a group of protesters dragging an injured young man to safety. is his nephew
he told me, pointing to a woman sitting on the ground.
Pedro Huamani, a 70-year-old man, a member of the Ayacucho People’s Defense Front, accompanied the victims who were waiting outside the IACHR meeting. We have suffered a terrible loss
he told me devastated. When they threw tear gas canisters at us I felt like I was suffocating, I almost died there
said. I went down towards the cemetery, but it was the same, they were shooting at us from behind. From the helicopters they also tried to kill us
.
Carmen He introduced me to some of his friends and one of them related: we all live near the airport and we saw how everything happened, they shot as if they were animals. We tried to help the injured, but it was very difficult.
.
The Ayacucho massacre, as well as the violent repression throughout the country, has only intensified the popular demand for the resignation of Dina Boluarte, who took office on December 7, immediately after the coup against Castillo. and she has justified
the use of force by the police, qualifying the protests as acts of terrorism
y vandalism
.
Trembling and holding back tears, Huamani expressed: She is a murderous president and in Huamanga we do not want her, nor do we recognize her as president, because she ordered the police and the army to shoot at us, the Peruvians. And those bullets, those weapons, we really bought them, not the soldiers, but the people. And that they are killing us is really horrible
.
The anger felt by the inhabitants of Ayacucho is also linked to the historical weakening of Peruvian democracy and the economic exclusion suffered by regions outside of Lima. Huamani explained: “they removed our president –Castillo–, so this is not a democracy. We are not a democracy, we are in [estado de] war in Ayacucho, Huamanga, Arequipa, Apurímac, Cusco…, where we are dying of hunger… and these right-wingers want to make us their slaves, but we will not allow it, we will continue resisting”.
They treat us like we’re all terrorists
said a relative of one of the victims.
Many of those who were present on December 15 expressed that the bellicose treatment they received was reminiscent of the days of the internal armed conflict of more than 20 years ago.
As part of the State’s campaign against the guerrilla insurgency, tens of thousands of innocent peasants and indigenous people were detained, tortured, disappeared, and murdered, accusing them of supporting or being part of the insurgency.
The population of Ayacucho was one of the most affected, according to reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created to investigate the human rights violations of the estimated 69,280 fatalities of the internal armed conflict in Peru between 1980 and 2000. Thousands fled their villages to Ayacucho during the conflict and today continue to search for their loved ones and demand justice.
One of them is Paula Aguilar Yucra, 63, who fled from the rural community of Usmay to Ayacucho in 1984, after her mother was murdered and her brother kidnapped and disappeared by the military. Today, almost 40 years later, she returns to mourn Her grandson, José Luis Aguilar Yucra, 20 years old and father of a two-year-old boy, was assassinated on December 15, shot in the head as he was returning from work.
By Zoe Alexandra