LIMA, Peru (AP) – On July 28, 1821, an extremely cheerful crowd seized a lima in Lima to hear the liberator José de San Martín claim Peru free of Spanish colonial power. On Tuesday, the 199th anniversary of independence, there were no crowds due to the pandemic, but many grim warnings that Peru faces some of the most demanding situations in its fashion history.
Flanked by security guards on foot, a car slowly took President Martín Vizautomobilera, dressed in a red and white ceremonial mask and a belt, through almost empty streets to Peru’s conference center. There, he tried in a televised speech to galvanize a hit country, like so many others in the world, through the economic calamity and the great death of the new coronavirus.
“We have to be transparent that Peru has moved on, and this time it will be no different,” said Vizcarra, who was a political rookie when he assumed the presidency in 2018. But he claimed that the coronavirus caused a “crisis in Peru.” superior to what we have faced in the past.”
Peru, with a population of 33 million scattered from the Pacific coast to the Andes and the Amazon, is accustomed to crises.
In one of the democratic structures last year, Vizcarra dissolved the opposition-controlled congress, which opposed its anti-corruption reform plans. The Supreme Court subsidized the president.
The Latin American country is also haunted by the brutal insurgency of the Maoist guerrillas of Shining Path. A fact-finding commission found that between 1980 and 2000, clashes between groups, the government and self-defense patrols killed up to 70,000 people.
Peru reported approximately 18,500 coVID-19 deaths and 390,000 showed cases of coronavirus, making it one of the most affected countries in the world. The actual numbers are much higher. The pandemic revealed weaknesses in Peru’s poorly funded fitness system.
A strict blockade imposed by the government on 16 March seeded an economy whose expansion in the decade after the end of the armed confrontation had reduced poverty. The economy fell 32.75% in May compared to the same month in 2019, an improvement from the 40.5% drop in April, while Peru is slowly reopening the economy, according to INEI, the national statistics agency.
In his speech, which lasted just two hours, Vizcarra said that the strict lockdown, which included arrests and fines for violating social estrangement regulations, had prevented thousands of deaths. He promised more spending on fitness resources and said his administration had put heavy subsidies for others in financial difficulty even before the virus attack.
“Peruvians know that I am one of the few presidents who reports on actions, data, effects and all the details,” said Vizcarra, an education engineer whose greatest significant political delight dates back 4 years as governor of a sparsely populated region. . southern Peru.
Many of his presidential predecessors have been discredited by accusations of corruption, reinforcing Peruvian skepticism of the statements of their leaders.
The public defender’s workplace said in a July report that Peru was a “vulnerable country” even before the pandemic. He said many social conflicts, some related to indigenous equipment and the expansion of the mining industry into network lands, would likely resurface as a country. reopens slowly.
He also warned that elections scheduled for April 11 could be compromised by the pandemic. “The electoral calendar will be positioned in a component or total form in situations of threat of contagion or in the midst of the effects of the pandemic,” the report says.
Thus, despite Vizcarra’s careful and data-rich discourse, Peru has more uncertainties and difficulties. Also the long journey of Peru 199 years ago, when Saint Martin declared its independence and, according to ancient accounts, the bells rang, the artillery erupted while greeting and the crowd dispersed through the side streets.
Independence lasted for years after that euphoric day.
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Associate press Franklin Briceo reported on this story in Lima and AP Christopher Torchia reported from Mexico City.