Amid Deadly Protests, Peru Declares a National State of Emergency The measure suspended some civil rights, including the freedom of assembly, and deepens a crisis set off when the elected president was impeached by Congress last week.The move is the most significant government response to a crisis that erupted last Wednesday when the president, Pedro Castillo, tried to disband Congress, which he had been feuding with since taking office last year.Several political analysts said that while past governments have declared states of emergency in certain parts of the country, the measure had not been used this widely since the 1990s, when the country was brutalized by a Marxist terrorist group called the Shining Path.“We have already gone through that experience in the 1980s and ’90s, and we do not want to return to that painful story that has marked the lives of thousands of Peruvians.” Mr. Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress and install a government that would rule by decree was denounced by both opponents and many of his allies as a coup attempt.In Cusco, the protests have choked off roads across the region, cutting off supplies to copper mines and local food markets and shutting down Machu Picchu and other tourism sites, said the regional governor, Jean Paul Benavente."