Mass protests in Peru against inflation and President Pedro Castillo's government began in March 2022. The protests occurred amid rising fertilizer and fuel prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions imposed on Russia. Some of the larger protests were organized by Geovani Rafael Diez Villegas, the leader of the Union of Multimodal Transport Guilds of Peru (UGTRANM) who had previously collaborated in late 2021 with business executives and right-wing politicians, opposing the Castillo government and whose power is recognized as rivaling the government's own Ministry of Transport and Communications. Diez Villegas demanded the removal of passenger restrictions on buses, pardons for transportation workers who were charged with crimes, and negotiations for forgiving debt owed by transportation businessmen to the government. He later organized a general strike aimed at paralysing transportation in Peru beginning on 4 April 2022 that resulted in protests, product shortages, transportation stoppages and rioting.
The Castillo government responded to initial protests by suspending a 30% fuel tax, though fuel companies refused to lower their prices and protests continued. Following widespread rioting on 4 April after the UGTRANM called for a general strike, President Castillo declared a one month state of emergency, citing intelligence reports of planned violence, and enforced a curfew in the capital city of Lima that was later withdrawn. Rioting occurred nationwide on 5 April, with thousands demonstrating in Lima and attempting to storm the Legislative Palace during Castillo's meeting with Congress. Additionally, the offices of the Supreme Court were looted. On 7 April, Castillo met with various protest leaders to find a solution to the situation, while later that day Congress voted on a motion calling for Castillo's resignation, with 61 approving, 43 against and 1 abstaining.
Background
COVID-19 pandemic in Peru
As a result of economic stagnation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru, between ten and twenty percent of Peruvians fell below the poverty line in 2020, reversing a decade of poverty reduction in the country and resulting in a poverty rate of 30.1% that year. According to the Institute of Economics and Business Development (IEDEP) of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, the country's middle class shrank by almost half from 43.6% in 2019 to 24% in 2020 due to the crisis. Following the global economic reverberations resulting from sanctions against Russia due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in February 2022, inflation in Peru rose sharply. By April 2022, the inflation rate in Peru rose to its highest level in 26 years, creating greater difficulties for the recently impoverished population.
Brotherhood of Pisco
According to Convoca, the leader of the Union of Multimodal Transport Guilds of Peru (UGTRANM), Geovani Rafael Diez Villegas, met with President Castillo in August 2021 on behalf of the , a manufacturing employers' organization. Due to the power that Diez Villegas holds within Peru, he was described by El Comercio as a "parallel minister" of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), with the newspaper writing that "[h]e has the decision-making power over the regulations published by the MTC and has walked through that ministry for three administrations as if it were his home". In September 2021, leaders of the SNI, UGTRANM, political leaders and other business executives began to meet as the "Brotherhood of Pisco" and planned various actions, including funding transportation strikes in order to destabilize the Castillo government and prompt his removal. In October 2021, the website El Foco released recordings revealing a leaked WhatsApp group chat, with Bruno Alecchi of the Permanent Transport Committee of the SNI forwarding messages from UGTRANM leader Geovani Rafael Diez Villegas about a transportation strike organized for 8 November 2021 and shared ideas of support, with the president of the SNI and former Vice President of Peru under Alberto Fujimori, Ricardo Márquez Flores, being mentioned in the chat. Planners were also discussing proposals to pay for protests and the purchase of media to support their effort to remove Castillo from office. El Foco reported that they discovered a Fujimorist named Vanya Thais who created the "Freedom Project" media operation had also been in contact with the group after they planned to fund her project. After the messages were leaked, further leaks showed that members of the group chat warned to leave the group because of media monitoring. The SNI later released a statement that the personal opinions of individuals in their organization did not represent the entity as a whole.