Dina Boluarte calls for a national truce for the million-dollar losses caused by the protests in Peru

The President of Peru, In Boluartecalled on Tuesday for a “national truce” to the demonstrators who are leading protests that are causing damage to infrastructure and losses in production for an equivalent to 1,282 million dollars.

Boluarte, who is facing calls to resign in the protests, said the anger is legitimate over a series of postponed social demands, but noted radical groups and criminal gangs are taking advantage of social discontent to create chaos.

The protests, which have left 55 dead in clashes and traffic accidents linked to the riots, began in December with the removal and arrest of former leftist president Pedro Castillo, who illegally tried to dissolve Congress and reorganize the judiciary.

“I call for a national truce to establish a dialogue table and set a common agenda for each region and develop our peoples,” said Boluarte at the Government Palace in Lima.

The demonstrations have focused mainly on the southern regions, where large mining companies operate and where almost all fatalities have been recorded during violent clashes with the police and the Army.

Boluarte said that the losses tothey will know from about 3,000 million suns in damage to infrastructure and 2,000 million soles in losses of national production.

During the protests, the demonstrators have blocked dozens of roads, set fire to public and private entities and in some forced the closure of some airports.

Three copper mines have suffered attacks and blockades IN the so-called “mining corridor in the Andes”: China’s MMG Ltd, Canada’s Hudbay and global Glencore. The latter temporarily closed its mine on Friday.

Peru is the world’s second largest copper producer.

Boluarte affirmed that the peaceful protests have sometimes turned violent due to the action of “radical people” who have their own political and economic agenda.

“And (the agenda) is based on drug trafficking, illegal mining and smuggling. That is why these protests have been geographically located in Puno and Apurímac,” he said.

Peru and Colombia are the largest producers of coca leaf and cocaine in the world.

Boluarte expressed his confidence that the unicameral Congress would definitively approve in mid-February, in a second vote, the advancement of elections to April 2024.