La crisis peruana refleja las profundas fracturas democráticas y sociales que muchos medios de comunicación tradicionales prefieren ignorar. Comprender América Latina implica escuchar las voces que a menudo se ignoran.
In recent months, Peru has been at the center of massive political protests, institutional unrest, and growing social unrest. While international media have reported on the surface chaos—burned buildings, clashes with police, emergency decrees—very few have taken the time to explain what underlies the crisis. For many outside Latin America, Peru seems like just another case of political instability. But for those living in the country, it is a clear sign of systemic failure. And for many media consumers globally, what's missing is context, the key to understanding what's really happening.
Mainstream media outlets, particularly those in the United States and Europe, tend to cover Latin American problems in broad strokes. They highlight dramatic events but rarely delve into the historical causes, social dynamics, or regional context. In Peru's case, this pattern is repeated. The protests are presented as spontaneous or irrational, government actions as unfortunate but necessary, and indigenous or rural communities as footnotes, if they are mentioned at all.
But the Peruvian crisis didn't begin last week or last month. It has been brewing for years, if not decades. Economic inequality, regional neglect, and a highly unstable political system have forged a fragile democracy that systematically excludes its most vulnerable citizens. Since 2016, Peru has had six different presidents. Corruption scandals have plagued nearly every administration. The deeply unpopular Congress has exploited constitutional loopholes to push its own agenda. And beneath this political chaos lies a population exhausted by broken promises and rising poverty.
In December 2022, President Pedro Castillo was ousted after an attempted coup. The local and international media quickly criticized him as authoritarian and inept. While Castillo's actions were unconstitutional, the media narrative failed to address why he enjoyed such strong support among rural populations. Castillo, a former schoolteacher from the Andean highlands, was elected in 2021 with the backing of Peru's forgotten interior. His presidency symbolized hope for those who had long been excluded from Peru's power structures. However, from the outset, he was attacked by elites and institutions that resisted accepting a leftist, rural president.
The protests that followed his removal were not only focused on Castillo. They also centered on exclusion, injustice, and a sense of betrayal. People took to the streets to demand recognition, representation, and dignity. More than 60 people died in the demonstrations, most of them from poor and Indigenous communities. Yet, in many international reports, the focus was on "disorder," "violence," and "instability," rather than the legitimate grievances that motivated them.
One of the most revealing aspects of this media coverage is what it omits. Little is said about Peru's extractive economic model, heavily dependent on mining in regions where local communities see few benefits. Almost nothing is said about the racism embedded in Peru's political and social fabric, a racism that devalues Indigenous lives and perspectives. And the word "neoliberalism" is almost never used, even though the economic model imposed since the 1990s has concentrated wealth and dismantled public services.
Latin America is not a homogeneous bloc, but it shares common patterns: inequality, historical injustice, extractive economies, and elite resistance to the redistribution of power. Peru is no exception. But if you only follow the headlines in the mainstream media, you might think the country is simply "ungovernable" or that its people are irrationally angry. That is the danger of superficial reporting: it tells the story of the disorder, but not the story of its causes.
Alternative and independent media in Latin America have strived to provide this missing context. Local journalists have documented the stories of protesters, interviewed victims' families, and analyzed the institutional crisis with nuances. Yet their voices rarely filter into global news cycles. Algorithms, commercial interests, and editorial biases shape what readers see—and what they don't.
For LatamPress, telling this story means rejecting the logic of silence and simplification. It means treating Latin American societies not as chaotic curiosities, but as complex and diverse realities, shaped by long histories of resistance, injustice, and resi
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