Peru: Achuar Indigenous People Seize 11 Oil Wells Demanding Spill Clean Up

Sep­tem­ber 9th, 2015

The Achuar com­mu­ni­ties say for­eign oil com­pa­nies pol­lute their lands and clean water and are demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion.

Peru­vian Indige­nous pro­test­ers seized oil wells in an Ama­zon­ian oil block Tues­day to press the gov­ern­ment to respond to demands for com­pen­sa­tion due to the pol­lu­tion caused by the petro­le­um oper­a­tions. The pro­test­ers from the Achuar Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties said they also plan to halt out­put in a near­by con­ces­sion.

The Indige­nous demon­stra­tors shut down 11 wells and took con­trol of an air­drome in oil block 8 to demand clean water, repa­ra­tions for oil pol­lu­tion and more pay for the use of native land, said Car­los San­di, chief of the Indige­nous fed­er­a­tion Fecona­co. Achuar leader Car­los San­di observes the dam­age left behind by extrac­tion­ist oil com­pa­nies.

The firm called on pro­test­ers in block 8 to seek dia­logue. “So far, how­ev­er, they insist on hold­ing con­trol of instal­la­tions,” Plus­petrol said in a state­ment.

San­di said the Achuar in oil block 192 would also soon seize wells there fol­low­ing a dis­pute with the gov­ern­ment over pro­ceeds for com­mu­ni­ties in a new con­tract award­ed to the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Explo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion. Both oil blocks are in Peru’s north­ern region of Lore­to.

“The deci­sion (to seize wells) has been made, we just need to wrap up some coor­di­na­tion,” San­di said.

Peru signed a last-minute deal with Pacif­ic for the rights to tap oil block 192 for the next two years after an open auc­tion for a 30-year con­tract failed to draw any bids last month.

The gov­ern­ment includ­ed ben­e­fits for some Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the new con­tract but a stale­mate with oth­ers over their share of oil prof­its left many out. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Pacif­ic could not be reached out­side of reg­u­lar busi­ness hours.

Block 192’s oper­a­tions have been halt­ed on var­i­ous occa­sions in recent years. The pro­test­ers have demand­ed the gov­ern­ment clean up oil spills and give them more com­pen­sa­tion.

Peru has declared sev­er­al envi­ron­men­tal emer­gen­cies there because of oil pol­lu­tion. The Latin Amer­i­can coun­try is rife with con­flicts over min­ing and ener­gy projects.

Ear­li­er on Tues­day, an assem­bly of social orga­ni­za­tions in the Ama­zon­ian region of Lore­to vot­ed to car­ry out anoth­er 48-hour strike start­ing Fri­day to protest the government’s pri­va­ti­za­tion move to allo­cate an oil lot to the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny for two years instead of the country’s state-owned com­pa­ny.

Lot 192 is the source of 17 per­cent of the nation­al crude pro­duc­tion. The region’s pres­i­dent of Patri­ot­ic Front Ameri­co Menen­dez said the Cana­di­an oil firm is a “mafia com­pa­ny,” say­ing that for exam­ple in Colom­bia they hire gun­men to deal with social lead­ers who oppose exploita­tion.

Nev­er­the­less, he added, the assem­bly also vot­ed in favor of main­tain­ing the talks with the gov­ern­ment, in order to nego­ti­ate var­i­ous demands, includ­ing the cre­ation of a com­pen­sa­tion fund of about US$112 mil­lion, in addi­tion to an inver­sion of around US$625 mil­lion in the area.

In Colom­bia, Pacif­ic Stra­tus Ener­gy alleged­ly hires killers against social lead­ers who oppose the exploita­tion, claimed Pres­i­dent of Fed­er­a­tion of Native Com­mu­ni­ties from the Riv­er Tigre Fer­nan­do Chu­je.

Min­is­ter of Min­ing and Ener­gy Rosa Maria Ortiz has indi­cat­ed that the state com­pa­ny PetroPe­ru will start a process of restruc­tur­ing and mod­ern­iza­tion in the next 270 days to pre­pare it to com­pete against the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny in two years, when the con­ces­sion ends.

Lot 192 is com­prised of areas inhab­it­ed by the com­mu­ni­ties of the riv­er basins of Pas­taza, Tigre, and Cor­ri­entes.

The lead­ers of the Apus Indige­nous peo­ple in the area have been protest­ing for years, demand­ing respect for their peo­ple and repa­ra­tions for envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion caused by oil com­pa­nies.