Peru indigenous blockades win repeal of land laws

18th June 2009: Peru­vian Con­gress Votes 82 – 12 to Repeal Two Con­tro­ver­sial Laws

Gov­ern­ment Urged to Drop Crim­i­nal Charges Against Indige­nous Lead­ers and Allow Inde­pen­dent Inves­ti­ga­tion into Vio­lent Inci­dents in Bagua

Lima, Peru – The Peru­vian Con­gress vot­ed today 82 – 12 to repeal two of nine con­test­ed laws in an attempt to end wide­spread indige­nous protests that have been par­a­lyz­ing trans­porta­tion and com­merce in the Peru­vian Ama­zon for 70 days. In a com­plete shift of dis­course, Pres­i­dent Gar­cia admit­ted that “there were a series errors and exag­ger­a­tions” in the gov­ern­men­t’s han­dling of this con­flict and asked Con­gress to repeal decrees 1090 and 1064, which were passed in 2008 as part of a pack­age of new laws to facil­i­tate the imple­men­ta­tion of the Free Trade Agree­ment with the Unit­ed States.

Hav­ing wit­nessed the vote in the Peru­vian Con­gress, Daysi Zap­a­ta, act­ing Pres­i­dent of AIDESEP, Peru’s nation­al Ama­zon­ian indige­nous orga­ni­za­tion wel­comed the Pres­i­den­t’s com­ments and declared: “Today is a his­toric day. We are grate­ful that the will of the indige­nous peo­ples has been heard and we only hope that in the future gov­ern­ments lis­ten and attend to indige­nous peo­ples, and not leg­is­late behind their backs.”

Zap­a­ta said that AIDESEP it is call­ing on our base orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties to end their block­ades and protests while also call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to enter into a good faith and trans­par­ent dia­logue.

Primer Min­is­ter Simon, who has been a lead nego­tia­tor to the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, said Tues­day that he would resign after bring­ing the cur­rent con­flict clos­er to res­o­lu­tion. The Peru­vian Gov­ern­ment has been heav­i­ly crit­i­cized for the June 5 attack to quell non­vi­o­lent protests by Ama­zon­ian indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, which result­ed in dozens of deaths of both pro­test­ers and police and left 150 of indige­nous demon­stra­tors injured.

In addi­tion to decrees 1090 and 1064, AIDESEP points to at least sev­en oth­er laws that con­tin­ue to pose a threat to their con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed rights. In addi­tion to the repeal of all these con­tro­ver­sial laws, indige­nous peo­ple are demand­ing that the Peru­vian Gov­ern­ment lift the State of Emer­gency, in effect since May 9 in sev­er­al regions through­out the Ama­zon. AIDESEP is also call­ing for the Gov­ern­ment to drop crim­i­nal charges against Alber­to Pizan­go and five oth­er indige­nous lead­ers. Pizan­go was giv­en safe pas­sage to leave the coun­try and is now exiled in Nicaragua.

In the Unit­ed States, fif­teen human rights and envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions recent­ly sent a let­ter to Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton and oth­er top Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials urg­ing the Unit­ed States to take imme­di­ate steps towards address­ing the polit­i­cal cri­sis in Peru. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from this coali­tion met with the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s office on Wednes­day to again urge the U.S. Gov­ern­ment to pub­licly clar­i­fy if Peru would be penal­ized for revok­ing the pack­age of “free trade laws.”

The dra­mat­ic shift in the Gar­cia Admin­is­tra­tion’s dis­course is like­ly due to the unprece­dent­ed inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic con­dem­na­tion of the attacks on peace­ful demon­stra­tions on June 5 in Bagua. Tens of thou­sands protest­ed in cities through­out Peru on June 11 in sup­port of Peru’s indige­nous peo­ples. Peru­vian con­sulates and embassies world­wide have been the site of repeat­ed vig­ils and protests. Tens of thou­sands have sent let­ters to Peru­vian and US gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Celebri­ties includ­ing Q’o­ri­an­ka Kilch­er and Ben­jamin Bratt, both part Peru­vian as well as Nobel Prize Lau­re­ate Rigob­er­ta Menchu, have pub­licly con­demned the vio­lence in Peru while call­ing for a peace­ful solu­tion.

Lead­ing inter­na­tion­al human rights bod­ies includ­ing the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights, the Unit­ed Nations Per­ma­nent Forum on Indige­nous Issues, and the Inter­na­tion­al Labor Orga­ni­za­tion have pressed the Gar­cia Admin­is­tra­tion to end repres­sion and uphold the rights of indige­nous peo­ples. Yes­ter­day, James Anaya, the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur of Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms of Indige­nous Peo­ple arrived in Peru for a 3‑day vis­it to gath­er infor­ma­tion about the vio­lent inci­dent in Bagua.

Ama­zon Watch’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Atossa Soltani, react­ed to the news with the fol­low­ing state­ment: “The Peru­vian Con­gress’s repeal of the two decrees is a wel­come first step in bring­ing indige­nous rights in Peru back to where they were before the decrees were pro­mul­gat­ed in 2008. The con­flict has become a water­shed moment for Peru’s poli­cies in the Ama­zon and has invig­o­rat­ed nation­al debate about deep-root­ed vio­la­tions of indige­nous peo­ples rights. Today’s good news notwith­stand­ing, indige­nous peo­ples are like­ly to con­tin­ue to be at risk by Gar­ci­a’s poli­cies to open up the Ama­zon to extrac­tive indus­tries.”

Since 2006, the gov­ern­ment has autho­rized oil and gas con­ces­sions cov­er­ing over 70 per­cent of the Peru­vian Ama­zon, much of it on indige­nous lands (see Peru­petro map at http://mirror.perupetro.com.pe/exploracion01‑e.asp).
For more infor­ma­tion, see http://www.amazonwatch.org/peru-protests.php

Ear­li­er arti­cle on block­ade crush­ing & mas­sacre here