Peru's President Garcia faces nationwide protests

The protesters are demanding that Garcia fulfill election promises to invest in infrastructure projects in the poor southern highlands and the eastern Amazon basin region, and reestablish labor rights taken away in the 1990s as part of the free market policies and wave of privatizations under the regime of Alberto Fujimori. The demonstrators have also demanded the rehiring of workers fired during the strike wave, a complete revision of the Free Trade Agreement already accepted by Peru and currently under discussion by the US Congress, and the convening of a Constituent Assembly.

Last year Garcia won the election in a second round vote. He defeated by a few percentage points his opponent, the ultra-nationalist and former member of the armed forces, Ollanta Humala.