The government of Peru shut down the ancient city of Machu Picchu and evacuated over 400 tourists on Sunday in response to leftist rioters shutting down major highways and burning down critical government buildings nationwide.
The closure of the site, a pivotal source of tourist income for the country, followed a major police operation at Lima’s National University of San Marcos (UNMSM) on Sunday that resulted in nearly 200 arrests, including individuals reportedly tied to the Shining Path communist terrorist organization. Lima has remained in a state of chaos since late last week, when dozens of buses transporting leftist rioters flooded the city for the “Taking of Lima,” an event in support of the release of imprisoned communist former President Pedro Castillo.
Peruvian Tourism Minister Luis Fernando Helguero confirmed the closure of Machu Picchu this weekend, citing roadblocks making it impossible for the government to ensure safe travel to and from the site as the reason. Shutting down the site resulted in 418 tourists already in the ancient city being trapped there. Peruvian police confirmed the tourists were transported to the town of Machu Picchu, outside of the archaeological site, by Sunday evening.
Machu Picchu will remain closed until further notice, Lima confirmed.
Castillo, the former president, was arrested in December, less than two years into his presidential term, after attempting to prevent his own impeachment by dissolving Congress illegally. Peruvian lawmakers had scheduled a vote on his impeachment that could not take place after Castillo appeared on television and abruptly announced that he had single-handedly stripped all lawmakers of their positions, a power the constitution does not provide him. Police arrested Castillo for an attempted “self-coup” – a term for the dissolution of Congress that became popular after conservative former President Alberto Fujimori successfully executed it in 1992 – and he remains in preventative detention at press time.
Castillo became president after narrowly defeating Fujimori’s daughter, former Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, in the 2021 presidential election.
Castillo’s arrest triggered a wave of nationwide violence on behalf of radical leftists who support his attempted coup and are demanding his release from prison. As the violence has continued, rioters have expanded their demands to the resignation of leftist acting President Dina Boluarte – Castillo’s vice president – and major changes to the Peruvian constitution, if not an entirely new constitutional document.
The newspaper La República, citing the national government ombudsman’s office, documented 55 deaths attributable to the riots since they began: 45 civilians, one police officer (who rioters burned alive), and nine people who died in car accidents or “acts related to the blockade” of highways. As of Sunday, according to the newspaper, rioters have established 109 roadblocks nationwide, leaving some communities, particularly more remote areas in southern Peru, at risk of running out of food, medicine, and other basic supplies. As of Friday, the government has documented 772 injuries in the riots.
The wave of violence erupting in defense of Castillo this month has resulted in the incineration of at least 17 public and private buildings, the local outlet Peru21 documented on Sunday. Police stations have been among the most common targets, as well as courthouses, airports, and mining facilities – attempts to paralyze and damage the country’s economy.
On Sunday, hundreds of rioters attacked Peru’s southern border with Bolivia, targeting government facilities used to ensure orderly transit between countries. The rioters reportedly set fire to the immigration affairs building, the headquarters of Peruvian customs, a border patrol office, and two police sites.
Making it impossible for immigration and customs offices to function would theoretically allow illegal passage from Bolivia to Peru. Boluarte and her government have accused leftist groups in Bolivia, and former socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales in particular, of fueling the riots in her country in an attempt to annex southern Peruvian territory. The Peruvian government banned Morales from entering the country in early January.
Reports from southern Peru also indicate that buildings the rioters are not directly targeting, such as local shops and other businesses, remain indefinitely closed out of fear of being attacked and as a result of roadblocks making it impossible to maintain their inventories. Peruvian government officials confirmed this weekend that, as of Sunday, 80,000 cargo trucks are paralyzed nationwide, creating a “critical” economic and food security problem.
The Association of Agrarian Producer Guilds of Peru (AGAP) issued a statement on Sunday demanding Boluarte act to immediately unblock highways by having the military seize control of them from rioters. The statement asserted total support for “the work of the national police and armed forces as per their constitutional and legal faculties to recover public order” and condemned the rioters for “provoking a situation of terror, death, destruction, extortion, and chaos.”
The government, the AGAP asserted, “must immediately unblock the country’s highways and maintain them under the custody of the national police and armed forces.”
“There is a population that is legitimately mobilized, what doubt is there? But on top of them, there are opportunists, violent people, criminals tied to the illegal economies and terrorism who are attacking critical sites with the goal of creating more panic,” former Interior Minister Rubén Vargas stated this week.
The largest and most dramatic act of arson in the riots so far occurred last week during the “Taking of Lima,” when leftists burned down a historic building in the capital’s San Martín Plaza built in 1930.
The largest police operation to occur this weekend was the raid on San Marcos University on Saturday, resulting in nearly 200 arrests. Law enforcement authorities accused rioters tied to the “Taking of Lima” with taking refuge on the campus, developing alliances with students in an attempt to protect themselves. The police operation resulted in violent leftist attacks, but Boluarte cabinet officials insisted that “not a single injury occurred.”
Leftists are nonetheless accusing authorities of brutality against rioters and using the university operation as another excuse to “protest.”
Police officials confirmed on Sunday that at least four of those arrested had ties to Shining Path, the communist terrorist organization. Police also freed 192 people arrested on campus as of Monday, two of them suspected of ties to terrorist groups.
Police first suggested the significant involvement of Shining Path in the riots – a group that had largely been eradicated after the capture of leader Abimael Guzmán in 1992 – last week.
“Let the populace know, that they have every right to protest peacefully, that there is no doubt that there are members of Shining Path on the sidelines,” Peruvian police counter-terrorism chief General Óscar Arriola said at a press conference on Thursday.
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