Cusco agrees to a total 48-hour shutdown with blockade of the railway line to Machu Picchu and pickets that prevent access to the Imperial City

With blockades of the railway access to Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu and pickets in several areas, different social organizations in Cusco are complying with a 48-hour strike demanding higher prices, the cost of living, fuels and fertilizers. The tourism sector in Cusco is also protesting and asking the government to get out of the crisis in which hundreds of tourism companies are still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru.

“We hope that in the proposal of the minister (Sánchez) to have a working table with the ministers and the president, we cannot trust ourselves with the simple proposal, we want it to be documented and serious. The strike is ratified by all agencies,” said Germán Santoyo, president of one of the factions of the Departmental Federation of Workers of Cusco.

The Departmental Federation of Workers of Cusco presented a platform of complaints in which they declare against the cost of living and the price of the passages, demanding that the government fulfill its commitment to the second agrarian reform, generating massive, productive and decent employment.

They also demand the reactivation of tourism, construction of Chincheros airport and the Sacred Valley highway. Construction of the Choquequirao cable car from the Cusco region.

Another request is to carry out a tax reform of large mining, the revision of the Camisea contract, the construction of the South Peruvian gas pipeline, the transfer of the Decentralized Department of Culture to the Cusco region, among others.

Meanwhile, the president of the Council of Ministers arrived in Cusco around 9:00 a.m. to set up a dialogue table with the organizations and unions of workers, farmers and tourism.

The decentralized Council of Ministers will be held this Thursday in Cusco and President Pedro Castillo is expected to arrive in the city of the Inca Empire on Friday morning.

MINUTO A MINUTO

9:30: Pickets on the roads leading into the city of Cusco and groups of protesters in the Historic Center on the first day of the agrarian strike in Cusco.

9:00: Pickets on the roads on the first day of agricultural strike in Cusco.

8:30: Peruvian Police has buses for the transfer of tourists. Railroad to Machupicchu is blocked. Train companies have suspended their operations.

8:00: IncaRail suspends its operations due to a general strike in Cusco and issues a statement indicating that due to the blockade of the railway “train services are suspended today and Monday, April 18 until safe passage through the concessionaire road is restored” -

7:30: Around the Plaza de Armas del Cusco there is no public transport or taxis, whose guilds also joined the general strike in the region.

7:00: The regional governor of Cusco, Jean Paul Benavente, said that he shares the vast majority of the agenda items established by the different unions and organizations representing civil society, “but we must also think about the reactivation of tourism in Cusco.”

6:30: Estanislao Arenas, president of the Cusco Transport Association, for his part, argued that for the first time in Cusco all social organizations came together for their sole interest. “We have united with only one horizon, which is the issue that overwhelms us; hunger, the unsustainable cost of living, we want to find solutions,” he said.

6:00: Carlos Hanco, Youth Secretary of the National Coordinator of Gas Users, said that the protest is an initiative of the people who are tired of all the crisis that has been taking place in the country

05:30 The workers' and farmers' guilds prepared a document to discuss a total of 10 central points such as the fulfillment of Pedro Castillo's promise on the installation of a Constituent Assembly.

05:00 In Ollantaytambo the departures and arrivals of trains were suspended, affecting around 5,000 tourists who today were planning their return to Cusco and those who already had tickets purchased to visit the citadel of Machu Picchu.

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