Peru: Amazon Indians Direct Action Against Government

Thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans are protest­ing against the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment. Protests have been going on for more than a week and involve an esti­mat­ed 14,000 Indi­ans from all over the Peru­vian Ama­zon. A road and a riv­er have been block­ad­ed, boats belong­ing to a gas com­pa­ny have been inter­cept­ed, an oil pipeline has been closed, and a hydro­elec­tric plant has been tak­en over.
The protests are in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment. The Indi­ans say the laws under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to take con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

Thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans are protest­ing against the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment. Protests have been going on for more than a week and involve an esti­mat­ed 14,000 Indi­ans from all over the Peru­vian Ama­zon. A road and a riv­er have been block­ad­ed, boats belong­ing to a gas com­pa­ny have been inter­cept­ed, an oil pipeline has been closed, and a hydro­elec­tric plant has been tak­en over.
The protests are in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment. The Indi­ans say the laws under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to take con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

‘(We) are the vic­tims of a sys­tem­at­ic vio­la­tion by the Peru­vian state of the fun­da­men­tal rights we have over our ter­ri­to­ries,’ a state­ment from Peru’s nation­al Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, said. ‘The per­son respon­si­ble for this is the pres­i­dent, Alan Gar­cia, who has vio­lat­ed Peru’s con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al agree­ments pro­tect­ing indige­nous peo­ples’ rights.’

AIDESEP and oth­er indige­nous lead­ers have been in talks with mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment, but these have since bro­ken down. Peru’s prime min­is­ter has said that talks can resume if the protests are called off.

The protests start­ed on August 9, the UN Day for Indige­nous Peo­ples. One of the Indi­ans’ main com­plaints is that the gov­ern­ment has failed to con­sult them about the new leg­is­la­tion, con­tra­ven­ing inter­na­tion­al law and the recent­ly approved UN Dec­la­ra­tion on Indige­nous Peo­ples’ rights.

AIDESEP has called for the protest to go on ‘indef­i­nite­ly’ until their demands are met. These include the repeal of thir­ty-nine laws.

Protests by thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans across the Peru­vian jun­gle have had major impacts on the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment.

The protests have been in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment that the Indi­ans say under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for out­siders to seize con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

Fol­low­ing the protests, Peru’s Con­gres­sion­al Com­mis­sion on Andean, Ama­zon­ian and Afro-Peru­vian peo­ples, the Envi­ron­ment and Ecol­o­gy has pro­posed a bill to repeal the two most con­tro­ver­sial laws — Leg­isla­tive Decrees 1015 and 1073. Con­gress is due to vote today on whether to do so.

Peru’s prime min­is­ter has described the Com­mis­sion’s deci­sion as estab­lish­ing ‘a bad prece­dent’ because it was made in response to the protests. Mean­while, Peru’s pres­i­dent appealed to Con­gress not to repeal the two laws, say­ing it would be a ‘his­tor­i­cal­ly seri­ous mis­take’ and would con­demn Indi­an com­mu­ni­ties to ‘anoth­er cen­tu­ry of back­ward­ness and mis­ery.’

The gov­ern­ment has declared a state of emer­gency in some parts of the Peru­vian Ama­zon. There are reports of police fir­ing bul­lets and spray­ing tear gas to dis­perse crowds, leav­ing some Indi­ans wound­ed.

Reports say that Peru’s nation­al Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, has called for a sus­pen­sion of the protests.