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Alejandra Thais, 24, is committed to change
Photo: private
They involuntarily became heroes of the young generation that brought down the interim president Manuel Merino in Peru: The students Inti Sotelo, 24, and Bryan Pintado, 22, were downright executed by police officers during protests in Lima last weekend, as was the case with the forensic report shows: Bryan Pintado was shot with ten lead bullets in the skull, face, neck, arm and chest, Inti Sotelo received four bullets, one of which went into the heart.
The two young men had joined the mass protests in Peru after Congress removed President Martín Vizcarra from office almost two weeks ago on allegations of corruption - thousands of people have taken to the streets in many cities every day since then.
They believe that Vizcarra was ousted because corrupt politicians clung to power.
Because the president wanted to take action against the corruption swamp, he had supported reforms against re-election and for a restriction of parliamentary immunity.
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A protester holds up a placard with the faces of Inti Sotelo and Bryan Pintado
Photo: Aldair Mejia / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
The 24-year-old Alejandra Thais was also at the protests and experienced police violence that was more brutal than ever before.
"They attacked us with tear gas bombs and shot us with pellets - but not in the air to scare us, they aimed at us." She and her friends fled the tear gas bombs, they also helped other demonstrators who no longer see anything or smell it.
Hundreds were injured by the police during the mass protests, and dozen were arrested and disappeared for up to three days.
But the demonstrators, including many teenagers and young adults, did not allow themselves to be driven off the street.
"We felt that otherwise there would never be another moment of stability or hope," says Thais.
"There have been so many successive governments and so many presidents who have been proven to be corrupt that the people are tired of seeing these people in power."
The death of Inti Sotelo and Bryan Pintado was the drop that broke the barrel - last Sunday, interim president Manuel Merino had to resign after just five days in office.
The center-right politician Francisco Sagasti is now supposed to lead the business of government until the elections next year - but the young generation in Peru is not yet satisfied.
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The new interim president Francisco Sagasti takes over a country in crisis
Photo: HANDOUT / AFP
The mass protests also mobilized many young Peruvians who for a long time did not care what the government was up to.
Rocío Rojas, 24, was previously apolitical, hardly obtained any information, she had the feeling that politics had nothing to do with her life.
"That has now changed completely," says the graphic designer and illustrator from Lima.
Her two cousins, 20 and 23 years old, also took to the streets for the first time in their lives to protest “against the government's wrong game” Interests of some corrupt congressmen should be canceled in the middle of the pandemic, ”said Rojas.
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For Rocío Rojas, 24, politics and protest have only played a bigger role this year
Photo: Gianfranco Peraza Arce
The three have been politicized via social networks.
On WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, young Peruvians have translated the complex state crisis into simple slogans in the past few days and called for protests, they shared videos on which the police brutally attack demonstrators.
International influencers such as the Venezuelan »La Divaza«, who is followed by more than ten million people on YouTube, and the Spaniard Jorge Cremades with more than a million fans, showed their solidarity with the demonstrators.
"This time, the news reached us much more directly via social networks and they explain what is happening in a very condensed and easy-to-understand manner," says Rojas.
But she also believes that the corona crisis and its direct consequences for everyday life have shaken even apolitical Peruvians in recent months.
During the pandemic, she became more aware of how political decisions and mismanagement shape everyday life.
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Corona hotspot: Peru has one of the highest death rates per inhabitant in the world
Photo: Rodrigo Abd / dpa
The government imposed a strict lockdown in March, but the virus is still spreading rapidly.
According to official information, around 940,000 Peruvians have been infected with corona so far, with more than 35,000 corona deaths, the country with 32 million people has one of the highest mortality rates in the world.
The health system is ailing, the hospitals are overcrowded, oxygen is scarce - wealthy Peruvians buy oxygen at exorbitant prices on the black market.
The economic consequences of the pandemic hit the poor particularly hard.
Around two thirds of the population works in the informal sector, whoever loses their job is not covered and the government does not provide enough support.
In the meantime, part of the state money intended to fight the corona is flowing into the pockets of corrupt entrepreneurs and politicians.
The Public Prosecutor's Office for Combating Corruption is currently investigating more than 120 complaints about irregularities in the purchase of medical equipment or cleaning and disinfecting agents, and more than 300 complaints denouncing mismanagement in the procurement and distribution of food.
The scandals seem like sheer mockery to the millions of people who are starving.
“The pandemic has helped create a collective consciousness,” believes Rocío Rojas.
"We all woke up."
Questioning the status quo
Cecilia Quiroz, who lives in the 86,000-inhabitant city of Tacna near the border with Chile, believes the mass protests were just the beginning.
The young Peruvians have just learned an important lesson: "If we organize ourselves a little more, big changes can take place," she says.
"It's worth fighting, it's worth mobilizing - and we have created a new normal."
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Cecilia Quiroz, 25, from Tacna: "It's worth fighting"
Photo: private
Although the new interim president Sagasti will try to contain the unrest, the historian Quiroz assumes that the youth will continue to take to the streets.
She believes that young people are also inspired by looking at the neighboring country: In Chile, the mass protests have led to concessions since last year; the Chileans recently voted in a referendum that the constitution, which is considered a relic of the Pinochet dictatorship applies.
This also puts Chile's neoliberal social and economic model to the test - one of the demands of the protest movement is, for example, that central sectors such as education, water or health should in future be controlled more by the state than by private companies.
In Peru, too, the inequality is enormous: In Cajamarca in northern Peru, where Quiroz grew up, she has seen a minority get rich with mines since childhood, while the workers are exploited, nature is destroyed and groundwater is polluted.
As a student, Quiroz protested against the planned mega gold and copper mine "Conga" in the region.
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As in Chile, citizens in Peru also make their anger audible by hitting pots and pans at »cazeroleros«
Photo: Rodrigo Abd / dpa
"Social inequality is nothing new here, but the consequences of more than 30 years of neoliberalism are showing with great severity in the corona crisis," she says.
“The government tells us to wash our hands regularly, but nearly eight million people have no access to clean water, and many places have no sewage systems.
Classes take place digitally - but around six million families have no internet.
Cecilia Quiroz is committed to
that Peru also gets a new constitution and calls on the population to discuss their ideas for a new Peru.
She also wants companies to no longer be allowed to finance political parties, because otherwise only their economic interests count - and that the police can no longer kill or torture with impunity.
In more remote regions, the police often brutally attack workers or the poor - the murders of Inti Sotelo and Bryan Pintado have now made the violence visible to the capital city residents in Lima.
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