By Alternativa Socialista Peru, section of the International Socialist League
The National Strike of October 15 marked a new turning point in the class struggle in Peru. What began as a call by Generation Z, the student movement and multiple workers and popular sectors, was transformed into a huge national protest against the illegitimate regime headed by José Jeri. His government has no social base or legitimacy. It is only sustained by the bayonets of repression and the corrupt agreements of Congress. From Puno to Piura, from Cusco to Trujillo, people took to the streets to shout “Enough is enough!” against hunger, insecurity, unemployment and institutional violence that has turned the country into a territory of fear and death.
In Lima, Plaza Francia became the epicenter of resistance and also of pain. There, young Eduardo Ruiz Saenz, a member of Bloque Hip Hop, a cultural collective that has been building popular awareness through urban art for years, was murdered. Eduardo fell victim to shots fired by a plainclothes policeman from the “Terna” group, a repressive force infiltrated among demonstrators whose sole purpose is to sow terror and demobilization. His murder was not due to excessive force but a political execution, a sign that the State is willing to continue killing to keep up a regime in ruins.
The Health Ministry reported 15 wounded, 2 of whom remain in critical condition in the Shock Trauma Unit of the Loayza Hospital, 4 journalists were wounded with pellets fired at their bodies, also victims of the censorship that the government practices against those who dare to show the truth. Throughout the country, the images were repeated: police firing gas, pellets and bullets, young people resisting with flags, banners and dignity, and an entire people who are beginning to lose their fear.
This crime is not an isolated event. This is the continuity of the same repressive regime that, under Dina Boluarte, killed more than 50 people during the 2022 and 2023 protests. Today, history repeats itself, now with Jose Jeri: a capitalist state that responds to popular demands with repression and blood. There are no substantial differences between Boluarte, Jeri or Rospigliosi -the new authoritarian face of Congress-, they are all part of the same bourgeois and neoliberal bloc that protects the interests of big business, mining companies, organized crime mafias and the military, amnestied with impunity by the Parliament.
The murder of Eduardo Ruiz cannot go unpunished. His name is already being shouted in neighborhoods, universities and squares: “Eduardo Ruiz, present, now and forever!”. He symbolizes a whole rebellious youth that stands up against precariousness, unemployment and repression. A generation that is not afraid to use TikTok and social networks as digital trenches, but that also takes to the streets to confront, face to face, the power of the State.
In the meantime, the cabinet of José Jeri has still not obtained a vote of confidence from Congress, and a motion of censure has already been filed that threatens to upset the fragile political equilibrium of the regime. The whole country is living in a situation of organic crisis, where no institution retains legitimacy and where repression is no longer able to contain social discontent. For this reason, the popular organizations have announced a new call for a National Strike for October 20, demanding justice for Eduardo Ruiz and all the fallen, the immediate fall of the Jeri government and the dissolution of the corrupt and criminal Congress.
Faced with all these facts, the road cannot be the simple substitution of one government for another. What is required is a total rupture with the regime of 1993 and with the bourgeois state, a process that opens the way to a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, imposed from the streets, that reorganizes the country on new bases: workers, peasants and popular power.
The sacrifice of Eduardo Ruiz will not be in vain if his name becomes a banner of struggle. May his assassination be the point of no return for the Peruvian people to say enough is enough, and for the working class, student and popular youth to raise a revolutionary project that unifies all the struggles.
Justice for Eduardo Ruiz and all the fallen!
Out with Jeri, out with the corrupt Congress!
Down with the murderous regime of ’93!
For a workers’ government to put an end to capitalist barbarism!
