Thirty-six people were injured and 95 were arrested in a day of street clashes between striking protesters and army troops enforcing a 30-day state of emergency the government imposed to keep the country going.
With his popularity plunging, President Alejandro Toledo signed the decree to cope with growing labor unrest, as thousands of striking teachers, farmers and health-care workers brought the country almost to a standstill.
As army troops brought their fist down on protesters around the country on Wednesday, they tore down 35 barricades of rocks and burning tires that had blocked the country's main Pan-American Highway.
Soldiers fired in the air to disperse rock-throwing protesters trying to protect the barricades.
Clashes were also reported in several cities across the country. In northern Chiclayo, police fired tear gas at a crowd of about 5,000 striking teachers.
Ministers Alberto Sanabria, of the Interior, and Fernando Carbone, of Health, said 36 people were injured -- 16 police, 20 civilians -- and 95 were arrested in clashes around the country on Wednesday.
Troops and armored vehicles also took up positions at key points in central Lima to prevent demonstrations, while anti-riot police dispersed demonstrators staging a sit-in at the legislature building. One military detachment was stationed outside the headquarters of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, the main union, reports said.
Toledo ordered the crackdown as a teachers' strike in Peru entered its 16th day, affecting some eight million children.
Leaders of the 280,000 teachers vowed to defy a government order to end their two-week-old strike, declared illegal late Tuesday just after Toledo said in a nationally televised address he was calling the second state of emergency in less than a year.
The president ordered all public schools to reopen and an end to highway blockades, citing the widespread labor strikes as violating "the fundamental rights" of all Peruvians. He said the armed forces would take charge of security in half of the country, including Lima.
Under the state of emergency, constitutional guarantees are suspended, including the rights to assemble, to privacy, to protest and freedom of movement. The state of emergency can be renewed for another 30 days, at the discretion of the president.
"We are responsible for defending this democracy we got back at such a high cost," Toledo said, referring to Peru's past history of military dictatorships and 10 years under President Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s before he fled the country.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in