Peru: Crisis and Uprising

Banners read, “They all must go! Jail the murderers! Elections now! Not one more death! Out with Dina Boluarte! Down with the racist civil-military dictatorship! Shut down Congress! For a people’s constituent assembly!”

A video of this February 22, 2023, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel.

A deepgoing political crisis is shaking Peru, with massive protests by working people in the countryside and cities, murderous repression by the armed forces and police, and desperate efforts to restore order by a widely hated right-wing Congress and an unelected president, Dina Boluarte. Women and Quechua and Aymara people from the Andean countryside and interior cities are taking a leading role in demanding that Boluarte and the Congress resign and that a democratic constituent assembly be convened to enable a government that represents Peru’s diversity rather than the exploitative, racist elites of Lima. Join us as Peruvian left activist and sociologist Nicolás Lynch reports on and analyzes these dramatic events direct from Lima. Historian Gerardo Rénique moderates and joins the conversation.

Nicolás Lynch has published many books and essays on Peruvian politics and history. He has taught at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima and has served as Peru’s Minister of Education and as Ambassador to Argentina. Lynch holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the New School for Social Research.

Gerardo Rénique taught Latin American history for many years at the City College of New York. He is a frequent contributor to Socialism and Democracy and NACLA: Report on the Americas. His research interests include the political traditions of popular movements in Latin America, and race, national identity and state formation in Mexico.