Craig Guillot seems to run into protests everywher
Craig meant to just watch the protest from the sidelines, but got swept in as everyone passed by, between police and military forces standing ready.
Cusco, Peru
Emerging from a deep sleep, it took quite a while to drag myself from bed to see what was going on. The swooshing of helicopter blades tore through the skies above me, rattling the walls of the building with such fury that I thought it was going to collapse. Between passings of the choppers, I could faintly hear shouting voices on loudspeakers down in the valley below, amidst what sounded like cheering and chanting crowds.
Stumbling to the window, I looked over the red-topped roofs of the Inca capital of Cusco to see thousands of people marching their way through the Plaza de Armas. From high upon the hill of the Inglesia San Cristobal, they looked like nothing more than ants quietly scurrying about their colony, but the blaring sirens, flailing banners, and chanting bodies gave evidence of something else. Stretching far off into the horizon between the earthen buildings, it appeared that almost everyone in the city of 400,000 had taken to the streets.
I busted from my ramshackle room with wrinkled clothes and camera in hand to make my way to the bottom of the valley, flying down the steep cobblestone stairs of Resbolosa with such speed and grace that it appeared I had grown wings. As I neared the streets of the city center, the crowds grew thicker with frustrated Peruvians of all walks of life who had emerged from their houses and shacks well before the break of dawn. Amidst chanting in Spanish and Quechua, dirty alpaca rubbed against silk shirts as the stench of poverty mixed with the sweet smell of expensive cologne.
Peru has changed much since President Fujimori took office. But this new Peru, said the protesters, now needed a new president, and one who didn’t have such heavy hands.
The large mass of bodies made its way through the Plaza de Armas beneath rainbow-colored Inca flag of Tahuantinsuyo, then snaked off to other parts of the city. With no apparent beginning or end, the route stretched for perhaps 3 or 4 kilometers, strategically stopping at government buildings and passing plazas where even more people would join in the march. Growing like a wild vine, the mass of people acted in a multi-themed protest, holding signs and banners and shouting slogans that tackled every issue from low teacher pay to lack of housing. But throughout the diversity of struggles, there was one unifying message: “No mas Fujorismo!”
While former President Alberto Fujimori may now be sitting high and dry in his comfortable Japanese asylum, in October 1999 he was stealthily attempting to change the national constitution so that it would allow him to run for a third term. Having taken office almost a decade earlier, when Peru was near bankruptcy and fighting one of the bloodiest guerilla wars in the decade, Fuji quickly buckled down with an iron fist. With much of the nation’s support, his economic reforms and declaration of martial law helped change Peru for the better. The revolutionary groups Sendero Luminiso and Tupac Amaru had been virtually annihilated by the late 90s. International human rights organizations had frequently condemned the regime for its abuses of human rights, but the fact remained that many Peruvians were glad to be rid of the terrorism which had paralyzed the country for years.
As the people of Cusco took to the streets that morning, terrorism was for the most part under control, meaning that it was time for Fuji to release his grip. As a popularly elected dictator, he was a hard medicine to swallow, but as the angry locals shouted that day, Peru was no longer sick.
Yet I was just in what was a common occurrence in the capitals and cities of Latin America. From Sao Paulo to Mexico City, it is often a daily affair for hundreds and thousands of frustrated people to take to the streets. Aimed mainly at arousing national and international attention to a cause, protests are more often than not peaceful events which serve more as an irritant than a threat to the government.
Despite peaceful intentions, it was a fragile existence where one wrong move could cause all hell to break loose. It is an environment where the throwing of a rock can lead to a domino hysteria effect, leaving hundreds of people injured and dozens dead.
That morning, the people of Cusco were well aware of this, surveying young beady-eyed men and looking for any signs of trouble. There is a strange form of mutually assured destruction between the protesters and the military that keeps relative order and peace. Small children sat upon the shoulders of their fathers, waving banners and yelling slogans, a good sign. Children are never brought to protests where violence is expected. In contrast, when I had once watched hundreds of young men march into Mexico City’s Zocalo, the rumbling of gas cannons and shotguns followed within minutes.
Surrounding the Plaza de Armas, armed troops and military vehicles are prepared to fight should the peaceful protest take a violent turn.
I kept an open eye for any hints of danger that might come in the Plaza de Armas. Everyone was prepared, especially the military, who were out in full force with troops stationed on every rooftop and corner in the city center. Perhaps more than a hundred soldiers gathered around the plaza in riot gear and armed to the teeth with tear gas and rubber bullets. Appearing as evil robots out of a science fiction film, they scared the children, who held tight to their parents hands every time the police came near. A few dozen more men stood guard with automatic weapons and hand grenades cautiously dangling from their vests � “just in case”. In front of the same cathedral where Francisco Pizzaro once passed more than 450 years ago, a tank kept guard with enough tear gas to send thousands fleeing in tears.
Shopkeepers and local businesses had shut down, not just out of solidarity but also in case that “the fine line” had been crossed. When trouble starts in times like these, the businessmen know that looters appear from the woodwork to strip the area of everything that isn’t buckled down. Old men and women peered precariously from the windows of their shops, with sticks in hand should the need arise.
I found myself dragged into the mass of people, unintentionally becoming a part of the protest and the commotion. They looked at me with hints of approval in their eyes and nodded their heads as I slowly walked beside them, making a round of the Plaza de Armas merely to get to the other side. Despite the fact that I agreed with their concerns, I had no intention of joining in on a protest that may very well end up in a battle. I wanted to be safe and sound on the sidelines.
It wasn’t long before the crowd tensed up, causing parents to grab their children as a raucous broke out on the edge of the plaza. Creeping through the mass of bodies, I looked to find a group of old Quechua women with bowler caps pelting a man with produce. Having caught him in a corner, they threw the mangos and oranges at him with such strength and precision that I could hear the thumps as they bruised his fragile body. The man had picked the wrong women to argue with. When it was apparent that he may very well be beaten to a bloody pulp by the women, a group of soldiers intervened, helping the man escape down the street, covered in fruit pulp to the laugh of the spectators that had gathered around him.
It was a comedic event, but one that could have easily turned to complete anarchy had the oranges been pointed in the wrong direction.
More than 4 hours of chanting, marching, and walking that fine line between peace and war had passed, before the mass of protesters slowly began to wind down and accumulate in the city center. Shopkeepers began to unlock doors, to capitalize on the thousands of people that had gathered outside of their businesses while soldiers, with their guns now on safety lock, went for coffee and cigarettes with the people that they had just been prepared to fight. The hovering choppers slowly faded away off into the mountains, as the tanks crept through the crowds to exit the plaza. More than a dozen barefooted children chased one of the steel beasts away, clenched fists high in the air as if they were making the military flee for its lives. Young men crowded into musky bars, churches opened for services, and street hawkers came from the woodwork to replace signs and banners with sodas and flowers as the angry protest slowly evolved into a community party.
It’s a funny thing to think that one man with a rock could have changed everything that day.