Hundreds of Peruvian university professors occupied a regional government building in the central Andes on Thursday and refused to let several top officials leave until they get a pay raise. "I can't leave. Please - why do I have to pick up the pieces because of the problems of the central government?" said the head of the Pasco region, Victor Raul Espinoza, in a brief telephone conversation with Reuters. Four other government officials were also inside the building.
The entire teaching staff of the Alcides Carrion state university entered the building in groups during the afternoon, claiming to have official meetings, and then took over the two-story building and refused to leave.
They were not armed and their protest was peaceful.
Half the professors later left the building and took up a candlelit vigil outside.
"There are 200 professors here. They want the (central) government to bring their salaries into line with magistrates," Espinoza said.
"Our country has one of the lowest budgets for education. The government assigns only 1.8 percent of its budget to universities and we want that to rise to 6 percent," protest leader Edgar Condor said by telephone.
He said a university professor earned an average of about $400 a month, while magistrates earned more than $2,000.
"That's an insult," he added.
Protesters in Peru, where there is a yawning gap between the rich and more than half the population who live on less than a couple of dollars a day, have increasingly used tactics like taking over public buildings and detaining their leaders to highlight their cause.
A year ago, hundreds of teachers striking for higher pay sacked and burned the headquarters of the region of Ayacucho.
Comments
Comments are closed.