Protests disrupting tourism and trade persisted across Peru on Thursday as a judge considered whether to keep the country’s ex-president in custody while authorities build their case against him on accusations of inciting a rebellion.
The decision on whether to detain former President Pedro Castillo for up to 18 months comes after the government’s declaration Wednesday of a police state to address the protests, which have led to at least eight deaths.
Castillo’s supporters began protesting last week after he was removed from power and taken into custody following his attempt to dissolve Congress ahead of an impeachment vote.
The latest political crisis has only deepened the instability gripping the country, which has seen six presidents come and go in as many years.
Peru’s Supreme Prosecutor Alcides Chinchay said in court Thursday that Castillo was facing at least 10 years in prison if convicted of the rebellion charge.
As the country awaited a ruling on Castillo‘s detention, a large group of protesters — and police in riot gear — gathered Thursday evening in central Lima. Protesters honked horns, chanted against the Congress and threw bottles; police pushed them back and fired tear gas.
Protesters are demanding Castillo’s freedom, the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, and the immediate scheduling of general elections to pick a new president and members of Congress. They have burned police stations, taken over an airstrip used by the armed forces and invaded the runway of the international airport in Arequipa, a gateway to some of Peru’s tourist attractions.
Thousands of tourists have been affected by the protests. The passenger train that carries visitors to Machu Picchu suspended service, and roadblocks on the Pan-American Highway stranded trailer trucks for days, spoiling food bound for the capital.
In Cuzco, a top tourist destination, people were stuck Thursday at hotels and the airport. Among them are 20 citizens of Ecuador, according to a statement from that country’s foreign affairs ministry.
“I was about to return to Ecuador on Monday, and unfortunately, they told us that all flights were canceled due to the protests,” said Karen Marcillo, 28, who has had to sleep at the Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in Cuzco.
Peru’s tourism industry is still recovering from the effects of the pandemic, which reduced visits to 400,000 last year, down from 4.4 million in 2019.
The virtual hearing on Castillo’s detention took place even though he refused to be served with a notification. He was represented by a public defender because he and his legal team refused to participate, saying the hearing lacked “minimum guarantees.”
While in office, Castillo spent much of his time defending himself against attacks from an adversarial Congress and investigations into accusations of wrongdoing including corruption and plagiarism. It is unclear whether Boluarte — once his running mate and vice president — will get much opportunity to govern. Like Castillo, she is a relative newcomer to politics without a base of support in Congress.
“She’s doing a good job right now, for the moment,” said Cynthia McClintock, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University who has studied Peru extensively. “But it’s a big challenge.”
While some protesters “seem to want kind of instability at any cost,” McClintock said, others see his ouster as an opening to express simmering grievances, such as deep inequality, poverty and lack of public services.
Boluarte may be given some breathing room by lawmakers seeking to keep their jobs. They cannot pursue reelection and will be jobless if a general election for Congress is scheduled, as protesters want.
Boluarte sought to placate protesters Wednesday by saying general elections could potentially be scheduled for next December, four months earlier than she had proposed to Congress a few days earlier.
All of the protest-related deaths have occurred in relatively rural, impoverished communities outside Lima that are strongholds for Castillo, a political neophyte and former schoolteacher from a poor district in the Andean Mountains.
In the city of Andahuaylas, where at least four people have died since the demonstrations began, no soldiers were on the streets Thursday despite the government declaration allowing the armed forces to help maintain public order.
Some grocery store owners there were cleaning roads littered with rocks and burned tires, but said they planned to close their doors due to expected protests led by people from nearby rural communities.
Judge Cesar San Martin Castro’s expected decision on Castillo’s detention comes after Congress stripped the ousted leader of the privilege that protects Peru’s presidents from facing criminal charges.
Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress came ahead of lawmakers’ third attempt to impeach him since he took office in July 2021. After Congress voted him out of power, Castillo’s vehicle was intercepted as he traveled through Lima’s streets with his security detail, and he was arrested.
Chinchay, the government’s top prosecutor, argued that Castillo is a flight risk, saying he had tried to reach the Mexican embassy to seek asylum after he left the presidential palace. Chinchay quoted remarks from Mexico’s president and foreign affairs minister indicating Mexico was open to granting Castillo asylum.
“We do not believe that he wanted to go to the Mexican embassy to have tea,” Chinchay said.
Castillo’s public defender, Italo Díaz, denied that the former president is a flight risk. He told the judge that Castillo’s children and wife depend on him and that he could return to his teaching job if freed.
The state of emergency declaration suspends the rights of assembly and freedom of movement and empowers the police, supported by the military, to search people’s homes without their permission or a judicial order.
Defense Minister Luis Otarola Peñaranda said the declaration was agreed to by the council of ministers.
On Wednesday, Boluarte pleaded for calm as demonstrations against her and Congress continued.
“Peru cannot overflow with blood,” she said.
In a handwritten letter that Castillo associate Mauro Gonzales shared with the Associated Press on Wednesday, the former president asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intercede on his behalf and for “the rights of [his] Peruvian brothers who cry out for justice.”
The commission investigates allegations of human rights violations and in some cases litigates them.
AP writers Franklin Briceño in Andahuaylas, Peru, David Pereda in Lima and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.