Category: Tribal Solidarity

Trib­al & indige­nous sol­i­dar­i­ty

Borneo tribe mounts new blockades against rainforest destruction

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for recog­ni­tion of the hunter-gath­er­er Penan tribe’s land rights and a halt to all devel­op­ment on their land with­out their con­sent.

Malaysian police are at the block­ades, but no arrests have been report­ed.

One Penan man told Sur­vival, ‘This piece of for­est is the only place left for us to hunt and find food. But there’s only a lit­tle bit left. Last night I went hunt­ing and came back with noth­ing. If we can’t save this bit of for­est, we will have noth­ing to eat.’

The Penan live in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Bor­neo. They have been strug­gling for more than twen­ty years to stop the com­pa­nies clear­ing their forests. Some have been suc­cess­ful, but many have seen their forests dev­as­tat­ed, their rivers pol­lut­ed and the ani­mals and plants they rely on for food dis­ap­pear.

Now, where the valu­able trees have all been tak­en, the com­pa­nies are start­ing to clear the land com­plete­ly for oil palm plan­ta­tions. Palm oil is used in many foods and cos­met­ics, and increas­ing­ly for bio­fu­els.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The log­ging and oil palm com­pa­nies are rob­bing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water. It is essen­tial that the Malaysian gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes the Penan’s rights to their land and stops allow­ing the com­pa­nies to take every­thing in sight.’

The noto­ri­ous Malaysian com­pa­ny Sam­ling is log­ging in the Long Daloh area, and a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny KTS is log­ging in the Ba Marong area.

Sur­vival researcher Miri­am Ross vis­it­ed the Penan ear­li­er this year, and is avail­able for inter­view.

Vis­it Survival’s web­page about the Penan

For more infor­ma­tion and images please con­tact Miri­am Ross:
T (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504543367
E mr@survival-international.org

Peru Mine Blockade Enters 10th Day

Attract­ing less atten­tion in light of the full-fledged upris­ing that has con­sumed Peru’s Ama­zon region for 70 days, a mine block­ade is ongo­ing in the country’s high­lands.

Attract­ing less atten­tion in light of the full-fledged upris­ing that has con­sumed Peru’s Ama­zon region for 70 days, a mine block­ade is ongo­ing in the country’s high­lands. On June 10th, min­ers launched road­blocks at the Bue­naven­tu­ra min­ing company’s Orco­pam­pa gold mine in Peru, in protest of poor labor con­di­tions and the mine’s impact on local com­mu­ni­ties. The block­ades are still halt­ing work at the mine, and the work­ers have ten­ta­tive­ly called for a strike for June 24th.

Climate activists blockade Peruvian Embassy & companies list

19 June 2009
Cli­mate change activists have blocked the entrance to the Peru­vian Embassy today in protest the country’s killing of indige­nous peo­ple in the Ama­zon rain­for­est.

Peruvian Embassy protest19 June 2009
Cli­mate change activists have blocked the entrance to the Peru­vian Embassy today in protest the country’s killing of indige­nous peo­ple in the Ama­zon rain­for­est.

Up to 100 peo­ple have been killed in recent clash­es over attempts to extract oil, gas, min­er­als and tim­ber from the for­est where indige­nous peo­ple have lived for cen­turies. On June 5, the gov­ern­men­t’s secu­ri­ty forces attacked a peace­ful block­ade, lead­ing to blood­shed on both sides with 30–100 esti­mat­ed deaths, over 100 injuries and numer­ous dis­ap­pear­ances.

Since the clash­es, the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment has sus­pend­ed some exploita­tion in the area, but it is unclear whether some com­pa­nies will be allowed to con­tin­ue.

Pro­test­ers from Lon­don Camp for Cli­mate Action are demand­ing to deliv­er a let­ter of protest to Peru­vian Ambas­sador Ricar­do Luna. The calls for oil and gas com­pa­nies in the Ama­zon to sus­pend their oper­a­tions until the gov­ern­ment agrees to peace­ful nego­ti­a­tions with local rep­re­sen­ta­tives; for an inde­pen­dent and impar­tial inquiry into the vio­lence; and for the lift­ing of all charges against Alber­to Pizan­go (the Pres­i­dent of Peru’s Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP)

Pro­test­er Sam Gar­den­er said: “This protest is to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the thou­sands of indige­nous peo­ple that are risk­ing, and some­times los­ing, their lives to pro­tect their homes in the Ama­zon.

“By destroy­ing the Ama­zon rain­for­est to extract fos­sil fuels, we are accel­er­at­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. The Ama­zon removes vast amounts of car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere. By cut­ting it down to remove yet more fos­sil fuels we are speed­ing towards a world­wide cat­a­stro­phe.”

—

15.6.09: Live­ly and well attend­ed demo at the Embassy by Colec­ti­vo Peru­ano, togeth­er with the Coor­di­nado­ra Lati­noamer­i­cana, and was sup­port­ed by Latin Amer­i­can Youth Against Vio­lence

—

Some of the com­pa­nies with new con­tracts in the Ama­zon and else­where in Peru (signed April 2009, some indi­vid­u­al­ly and some as part of a con­sor­tium with Peru­petro) that I can find (but unable to secure direct links/locations in the UK) are:

Plus­petrol — http://www.pluspetrol.net/
Reliance — http://www.reliancepetroleum.com/
CNPC — http://www.cnpc.com.cn/eng/
Petrope­ru — http://www.cnpc.com.cn/eng/
Faulkn­er Suits Explo­ration (US)
Olympic (US or Cana­di­an)
Petro­lif­era — http://www.petrolifera.ca/
Pan Andean Resources (Dublin based) — http://www.panandeanresources.com/contact/
Kei (Aus­tralia)
Petro­Viet­nam (Viet­nam)
Gold­en Oil — http://www.goldenoilcorp.com/new/english/company/company01_4.php

How­ev­er, some of these com­pa­nies DO have UK based offices and trad­ing:

EMERALD ENERGY PLC
http://www.emeraldenergy.com/contact.htm
With a reg­is­tered office in Lon­don.

CONOCO PHILLIPS
http://www.conocophillips.co.uk/ContactUs/index.htm
An Amer­i­can com­pa­ny that is report­ed to have a new “mega con­ces­sion” of 10.5 mil­lion hectares in the Ama­zon for oil explo­ration.
Offices and activ­i­ties in Lon­don, Aberdeen, Teesside, Hum­ber, Thed­dlethor­pe, War­wick

There’s a report on their activ­i­ties in Peru here: http://www.amazonwatch.org/conoco2009.pdf

The sit­u­a­tion in Peru cur­rent­ly is dire.… the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties have been mobi­liz­ing and resist­ing since April and at this time when their lead­ers are threat­ened with arrest and there are wide­spread mur­ders and dis­ap­pear­ances occur­ring it is key that those of us ben­e­fit­ting from these explo­rations (in the Glob­al North) do what we can to show sol­i­dar­i­ty and to put the pres­sure direct­ly on the com­pa­nies that are treat­ing Peru as a smor­gas­board of ways out of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cri­sis…

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

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

ELF sabotage digger & arson solidarity with Peru

ELF SABOTAGE DIGGER (Italy)

anony­mous report:

“ROME ITALY We cut wires and the oil tube of a dig­ger used to defor­est. unfor­tu­nate­ly there were men at work so we could not destroy the cab Earth lib­er­a­tion front”

»

ARSON ATTACK AGAINST POLICE VEHICLE IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE IN PERU (Mex­i­co)

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion):

ELF SABOTAGE DIGGER (Italy)

anony­mous report:

“ROME ITALY We cut wires and the oil tube of a dig­ger used to defor­est. unfor­tu­nate­ly there were men at work so we could not destroy the cab Earth lib­er­a­tion front”

»

ARSON ATTACK AGAINST POLICE VEHICLE IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE IN PERU (Mex­i­co)

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion):

“On the night of June 8, we, the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra, along with some anar­cho-Insur­rec­tion­al indi­vid­u­als who are com­mit­ted to con­stant con­flict with the state and its insti­tu­tions, decid­ed to car­ry out an action togeth­er in the city of Ecate­pec in Mex­i­co State. This time our main objec­tive was the machines that belong to author­i­ties in that city that are used to rip up trees from their roots and to cov­er the earth with con­crete; the machines were hid­den under the bridge over Aveni­da More­los and López Por­tillo.

When we arrived there we real­ized that the earth-destroy­ing own­ers’ slaves were inside the machines, and that they sure­ly would­n’t be leav­ing until the fol­low­ing day, to work and to be exploit­ed to earn a few coins for their sub­sis­tence. Why is it that peo­ple are watch­ing the machines? Is it that the own­ers fear leav­ing them alone and the next morn­ing find­ing them unus­able, that their urban­ist project be delayed and thou­sands of pesos lost in dam­ages, like they have seen hap­pen in oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties in Mex­i­co State?

This objec­tive was aban­doned and we decid­ed to car­ry out anoth­er; in front of the exca­va­tors, bull­doz­ers and oth­er machines was a large com­mand head­quar­ters of state police tor­tur­ers, the ASE (Agency of State Secu­ri­ty), vio­la­tors of the pris­on­ers in Aten­co, accom­plices in the killing of ani­mals in Jal­tenco, pro­tec­tors of the inter­ests of the multi­na­tion­als, killers of the earth, liv­ing with the impuni­ty that Mex­i­can jus­tice gives them, laugh­ing with their machine guns on their backs and con­fi­dant that they can destroy any protest with their repres­sion. They were there; maybe they did­n’t know that all vio­lence cre­ates counter vio­lence and for all who are struck down, soon­er or lat­er there will be a response.

Ded­i­cat­ed like wild wolves who have left their dens under the full moon, we placed an incen­di­ary device in one of the trucks, a small flame ignit­ed the engine and burnt the truck.

Our sab­o­tage was fast and effec­tive, the destruc­tion of social peace was immi­nent. What police would be expect­ing an arson attack in front of their very noses? How do those com­man­ders feel who boast of the fast effec­tive­ness of their sub­or­di­nates now that a group of eco-anar­chists have attacked their facil­i­ties? Do they feel hor­ri­ble because the raid they car­ried out after the fire was use­less; they could not catch those respon­si­ble who now write these lines of revenge against the anthro­pocen­tric state and its insti­tu­tions?

The war against this sys­tem is dead­ly seri­ous, if they order their police to sup­press, incen­di­ary self-defense will rise up.

We ded­i­cate this action to the fierce defense that is car­ried out in the Ama­zon in Peru; the peas­ants killed by the anthro­pocen­trist state have been avenged by their nat­ur­al instinct to defend the wilder­ness, killing, kid­nap­ping and also injur­ing the police.

Let’s defend the plan­et where we live!

Show your teeth!

Now no more pas­siv­i­ty!

ELF/FLT”

Indigenous anti-infastructure protesters murdered in crackdown on months-long blockade in Peru

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle.

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle. Petrope­ru, the state oil com­pa­ny, had to shut a pipeline that car­ries 40,000 bar­rels of oil each day. Amid threats of ener­gy rationing in east­ern towns, the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cía this month ordered armed police to clear a stretch of road and retake a pump­ing sta­tion near Bagua, in Peru’s north­ern jun­gle

—-

THE BACKGROUND

Ear­ly this morn­ing (June 5th), Peru­vian police launched a vio­lent attack on a non­vi­o­lent road block­ade held by Ama­zon­ian indige­nous pro­test­ers oppos­ing 10 laws that would open up their ter­ri­to­ry to increased min­er­al, oil, gas and tim­ber exploita­tion. Police opened fire with live ammu­ni­tion, killing at least 28 peo­ple.

FMI:
http://www.rootforce.org/2009/06/05/peruvian-police-murder-indigenous-protesters-take-action/

WHY TAKE ACTION

The first rea­son to take action, of course, is sim­ply out of sol­i­dar­i­ty with our fel­low war­riors in the strug­gle for a just and sus­tain­able world. But why are we send­ing out this action alert as Root Force?

For near­ly two months, thou­sands indige­nous pro­test­ers have near­ly par­a­lyzed Peru’s Ama­zon region with block­ades of crit­i­cal trans­porta­tion and min­ing infra­struc­ture. They have sparked a nation­al dis­course over the lim­its to devel­op­ment and who owns nature, and have made it clear that they will not sur­ren­der any of their ances­tral home­lands.

At the heart of the issue are 10 laws passed by pres­i­den­tial decree that would great­ly facil­i­tate indus­tri­al exploita­tion of the Ama­zon. THIS IS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, intend­ed to sup­ply new raw mate­ri­als for the glob­al mar­ket. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WEAK POINTS OF THE SYSTEM that we are always talk­ing about.

The indige­nous war­riors fight­ing for their lives have pushed this issue into the glob­al eye, and the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment has placed itself in a posi­tion of weak­ness by mur­der­ing unarmed pro­test­ers. Even before the recent killings, a con­gres­sion­al pan­el had already declared 2 of the laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and only through pro­ce­dur­al tricks has the pres­i­den­t’s par­ty been able to stall debate on repeal­ing one of those laws.

This is one of those rare cas­es where SUSTAINED INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE COULD TIP THE SCALES. If these laws are repealed, it will be a major set­back for infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans in a tru­ly crit­i­cal region of the hemi­sphere.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

You can email crit­i­cal peo­ple in the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment through this link, pro­vid­ed by Ama­zon Watch:

http://amazonwatch.org/peru-action-alert.php

You can also orga­nize protests at Peru­vian embassies or con­sulates, or take oth­er actions that you think stand a good chance of mak­ing it back to the deci­sion mak­ers in Lima.

Make sure to express your out­rage at the gov­ern­men­t’s strong arm tac­tics — even before the mur­ders, the gov­ern­ment had sus­pend­ed civ­il lib­er­ties in 5 provinces and was call­ing indige­nous peo­ple “ter­ror­ists” — and demand the repeal of the Free Trade laws and any law fur­ther open­ing the Ama­zon to min­er­al, oil, gas, tim­ber, hydro­elec­tric or agri­cul­tur­al exploita­tion.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,
Root Force

—–

Recent reports indi­cate as many as 84 peo­ple killed and 150 arrest­ed in clash­es stem­ming from an ear­ly morn­ing vio­lent raid by police on unarmed pro­test­ers on June 5. Police are report­ed to be burn­ing the bod­ies of the dead and dump­ing them into the riv­er.

Aston­ish­ing­ly — but not sur­pris­ing­ly — the gov­ern­ment is accus­ing the pro­test­ers of using tac­tics rem­i­nis­cent of the 1980s inter­nal con­flict. Deploy­ing racist imagery paint­ing indige­nous pro­test­ers as spear-wield­ing sav­ages, Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia has vowed a tough “response.”

Fol­low­ing the ear­ly-morn­ing mas­sacre, pro­test­ers took 38 police hostage at a pump­ing sta­tion for the nation­al oil com­pa­ny, PetroPe­ru. A police raid to free the offi­cers result­ed in the deaths of nine of them. An Argen­tin­ian oil com­pa­ny, Plus­petrol, has halt­ed oil pump­ing in one unit and will soon halt pump­ing in anoth­er due to the unrest.

The gov­ern­ment has since issued an arrest war­rant for indige­nous leader Alber­to Pizan­go (who was elect­ed to rep­re­sent the indige­nous coali­tion by the lead­ers of 1,200 com­mu­ni­ties), charg­ing him with “sedi­tion.” Pizan­go has gone into hid­ing.

Please take action and urge the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment to halt the vio­lence and repeal the con­tro­ver­sial free trade laws that would open up indige­nous land in the Ama­zon to increased devel­op­ment. Con­tact the US gov­ern­ment and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies as well, and encour­age them to place pres­sure on Peru. The Peru­vian gov­ern­ment is in a seri­ous posi­tion of weak­ness right now and try­ing to cov­er it up with vio­lence, and this is one of those rare cas­es where inter­na­tion­al pres­sure could deal a major set­back to infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans.

Read the full Root Force action alert on this issue here.

——

Indige­nous Lead­ers and Allies Call for an End to Vio­lence on All Sides

BAGUA, Peru — June 8 — In the after­math of Friday’s bloody raid on a peace­ful indige­nous road block­ade near Bagua in the Peru­vian Ama­zon, numer­ous eye­wit­ness­es are report­ing that the Spe­cial Forces of the Peru­vian Police have been dis­pos­ing of the bod­ies of indige­nous pro­test­ers who were killed.

“Today I spoke to many eye­wit­ness­es in Bagua report­ing that they saw police throw the bod­ies of the dead into the Marañon Riv­er from a heli­copter in an appar­ent attempt by the Gov­ern­ment to under­re­port the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police,” said Gre­gor MacLen­nan, spokesper­son for Ama­zon Watch speak­ing.

“Hos­pi­tal work­ers in Bagua Chi­ca and Bagua Grande cor­rob­o­rat­ed that the police took bod­ies of the dead from their premis­es to an undis­closed loca­tion. I spoke to sev­er­al peo­ple who report­ed that there are bod­ies lying at the bot­tom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilo­me­ters from the inci­dent site. When the Church and local lead­ers went to inves­ti­gate, the police stopped them from approach­ing the area,” report­ed MacLen­nan.

Police and gov­ern­ment offi­cials have been con­sis­tent­ly under­re­port­ing the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police gun­fire. Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions place the num­ber of pro­test­ers killed at least at 40, while Gov­ern­ment offi­cials claim­ing that only a hand­ful of indige­nous peo­ple were killed. Also the Gar­cia Gov­ern­ment claims that 22 police offi­cers were killed and sev­er­al still miss­ing.

“Wit­ness­es say that it was the police who opened fire last Fri­day on the pro­test­ers from heli­copters,” MacLen­nan said. “Now the gov­ern­ment appears to be destroy­ing the bod­ies of slain pro­test­ers and giv­ing very low esti­mates of the casu­al­ty. Giv­en that the demon­stra­tors were unarmed or car­ry­ing only wood­en spears and the police were fir­ing auto­mat­ic weapons, the actu­al num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed is like­ly to be much high­er.”

“Anoth­er eye­wit­ness report­ed see­ing the bod­ies of five indige­nous peo­ple that had been burned beyond iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at the morgue. I have lis­tened to tes­ti­mo­ny of peo­ple in tears talk­ing about wit­ness­ing the police burn­ing bod­ies,” con­tin­ued MacLen­nan.

At least 150 peo­ple from the demon­stra­tion on Fri­day are still being detained. Eye-wit­ness reports also con­firm that police forcibly removed some of the wound­ed indige­nous pro­test­ers from hos­pi­tals, tak­ing them to unknown des­ti­na­tions. Their fam­i­lies expressed con­cern for their well being while in deten­tion. There are many peo­ple still report­ed miss­ing and access to med­ical atten­tion in the region is hor­ri­bly inad­e­quate.

The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee for the Indige­nous Peo­ples of Alto Ama­zonas Province issued this state­ment: “It is appalling that polit­i­cal pow­ers have act­ed in such a cru­el and inhu­man man­ner against Ama­zon­ian Peo­ples, fail­ing to rec­og­nize the fun­da­men­tal rights and pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed to us by the Con­sti­tu­tion. We express deep grief over the death of our indige­nous broth­ers, of civil­ians and the offi­cers of the Nation­al Police.”

The gov­ern­ment expand­ed the State of Emer­gency and estab­lished a cur­few on all traf­fic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indige­nous and inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions are wor­ried about plans of anoth­er Nation­al Police raid on a block­ade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tara­po­to where thou­sands are block­ing a road.

Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia is being wide­ly crit­i­cized for foment­ing a cli­mate of fear mon­ger­ing against indige­nous peo­ples by draw­ing par­al­lels to the bru­tal Shin­ning Path guer­ril­la move­ment of the 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, and by vague­ly refer­ring to exter­nal and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic threats to the coun­try.

The Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ples’ mobi­liza­tions have been peace­ful, local­ly coor­di­nat­ed, and extreme­ly well orga­nized for near­ly two months. Yet Gar­cia insists on call­ing them ter­ror­ist acts and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic. Gar­cia has even gone so far as to describe the indige­nous mobi­liza­tions as “sav­age and bar­bar­ic.” Gar­cia has made his dis­crim­i­na­tion explic­it, say­ing direct­ly that the Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ple are not first-class cit­i­zens.

“These peo­ple don’t have crowns,” Gar­cia said about the pro­test­ers. “These peo­ple aren’t first-class cit­i­zens who can say — 400,000 natives to 28 mil­lion Peru­vians — ‘You don’t have the right to be here.’ No way. That is a huge error.”
Iron­i­cal­ly, Peru was the coun­try that intro­duced the Unit­ed Nations Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples on the floor of the Gen­er­al Assem­bly when it was adopt­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2007.

A coali­tion of indige­nous and human rights orga­ni­za­tions will protest in front of the Peru­vian Embassy in Wash­ing­ton D.C. on Mon­day, June 8 at 12:30 pm.

Indige­nous peo­ples have vowed to con­tin­ue protests until the Peru­vian Con­gress revokes the “free trade” decrees issued by Pres­i­dent Gar­cia under spe­cial pow­ers grant­ed by Con­gress in the con­text of the Free Trade Agree­ment with the Unit­ed States.

Among the out­pour­ing of state­ments con­demn­ing the vio­lence in Peru were those from Peru’s Ombudsman’s office, the chair of the Unit­ed Nations Per­ma­nent Forum on Indige­nous Issues, a coali­tion of 45 inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions, Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions from through­out the Amer­i­c­as, and the Con­fer­ence of Bish­ops of Peru. Also famous per­son­al­i­ties includ­ing Q’orianka Kilch­er, Ben­jamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Han­nah and Bian­ca Jag­ger called on the Peru­vian Gov­ern­ment to cease the vio­lence and seek peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the con­flict.

AIDESEP, the nation­al indige­nous orga­ni­za­tion of Peru has called for a nation­wide gen­er­al strike start­ing June 11th.

Ama­zon Watch is con­tin­u­al­ly updat­ing pho­tographs, audio tes­ti­mo­ny, and video footage from Bagua on www.amazonwatch.org.

New­ly released b‑roll at http://amazonwatch.org/peru-protests-highres-photos.php

—–

—–

The broad­en­ing influ­ence of the indige­nous move­ment was on dis­play Thurs­day in a gen­er­al strike that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers here to the streets of Iqui­tos, the largest Peru­vian city in the Ama­zon, and to cities and towns else­where in jun­gle areas. Protests over Mr. Gar­cía’s han­dling of the vio­lence in the north­ern Bagua Province last Fri­day also took place in high­land regions like Puno, near the Boli­vian bor­der, and in Lima and Are­quipa on the Pacif­ic coast.

“The gov­ern­ment made the sit­u­a­tion worse with its con­de­scend­ing depic­tion of us as gangs of sav­ages in the for­est,” said Wag­n­er Muso­line Acho, 24, an Awa­jún Indi­an and an indige­nous leader. “They think we can be tricked by a maneu­ver like sus­pend­ing a cou­ple of decrees for a few weeks and then rein­tro­duc­ing them, and they are wrong.”

The pro­test­ers’ imme­di­ate threat – to cut the sup­ply of oil and nat­ur­al gas to Lima, the cap­i­tal – seems to have sub­sided, with pro­test­ers part­ly with­draw­ing from their occu­pa­tion of oil instal­la­tions in the jun­gle. But as anger fes­ters, indige­nous lead­ers here said they could eas­i­ly try to shut down ener­gy instal­la­tions again to exert pres­sure on Mr. Gar­cía.

Anoth­er wave of protests appears like­ly because indige­nous groups are demand­ing that the decrees be repealed and not just sus­pend­ed. The decrees would open large jun­gle areas to invest­ment and allow com­pa­nies to bypass indige­nous groups to obtain per­mits for petro­le­um explo­ration, log­ging and build­ing hydro­elec­tric dams. A stop­gap attempt to halt ear­li­er indige­nous protests in the Ama­zon last August failed to pre­vent them from being reini­ti­at­ed more force­ful­ly in April.

…

The author­i­ties are strug­gling to under­stand a move­ment that is crys­tal­liz­ing in the Peru­vian Ama­zon among more than 50 indige­nous groups. They include about 300,000 peo­ple, account­ing for only about 1 per­cent of Peru’s pop­u­la­tion, but they live in strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant and resource-rich loca­tions, which are scat­tered through­out jun­gle areas that account for near­ly two-thirds of Peru’s ter­ri­to­ry.

So far, alliances have proved elu­sive between Indi­ans in the Ama­zon and indige­nous groups in high­land areas, rul­ing out, for now, the kind of broad indige­nous protest move­ments that helped oust gov­ern­ments in neigh­bor­ing Ecuador and Bolivia ear­li­er in the decade.

In con­trast to some ear­li­er efforts to orga­nize indige­nous groups, the lead­ers of this new move­ment are them­selves indige­nous, and not white or mes­ti­zo urban intel­lec­tu­als. They are well orga­nized and use a web of radio sta­tions to exchange infor­ma­tion across the jun­gle. After one promi­nent leader, Alber­to Pizan­go [who explic­i­ty links the strug­gles there to glob­al cli­mate change every­where], was grant­ed asy­lum in Nicaragua this week, oth­ers quick­ly emerged to artic­u­late demands.

Peru Indigenous Holding Strong in Standoff

June 3rd 2009
A mas­sive indige­nous mobi­liza­tion in the Peru­vian Ama­zon is near­ing its sec­ond month, with no sign that the native pro­test­ers will allow them­selves to be intim­i­dat­ed into giv­ing up on their demands.

Peru oil boat occupationJune 3rd 2009
A mas­sive indige­nous mobi­liza­tion in the Peru­vian Ama­zon is near­ing its sec­ond month, with no sign that the native pro­test­ers will allow them­selves to be intim­i­dat­ed into giv­ing up on their demands.

Thou­sands of indige­nous pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture in Peru’s Ama­zon region since April 9, when they declared a nation­al strike in protest of new laws that would facil­i­tate increased indus­tri­al exploita­tion of their ter­ri­to­ries for tim­ber, oil and gas. The laws were passed by decree under pow­ers grant­ed to Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia to bring to coun­try into com­pli­ance with a US-Peru free trade agree­ment. The 10 laws that pro­test­ers are demand­ing repealed were not part of the trade agree­ment, how­ev­er, and were declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by a con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion in Decem­ber.

So far, indige­nous pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed roads and water­ways, forced a shut­down to the only crude oil pipeline in Peru, forced two oil com­pa­nies to cease oper­a­tion, blocked tourist access to the ruins of Machu Pic­chu (twice), and held protests that par­a­lyzed the region’s biggest city, Iqui­tos. On May 31, sev­er­al hun­dred pro­test­ers took over two valve sta­tions on the only pipeline that trans­ports nat­ur­al gas from the con­tro­ver­sial Camisea gas fields.

The protests are orga­nized under the aus­pices of the Intereth­nic Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of the Peru­vian Rain­for­est (AIDESP), which rep­re­sents 1,200 dif­fer­ent native com­mu­ni­ties. AIDESP’s elect­ed leader, Alber­to Pizan­go, insists that the mobi­liza­tion will not end until Con­gress repeals the 10 objec­tion­able laws, declares the state of emer­gency (mar­tial law) declared in 5 Ama­zon­ian provinces since May 9, and enters a good-faith dis­cus­sion with native com­mu­ni­ties over a dif­fer­ent mod­el for devel­op­ing the Ama­zon.

One of the 10 laws has been ten­ta­tive­ly repealed, but this action must be approved by the full Con­gress. The oth­er 9 laws remain on the books.

South American dam news

2 Arrests in Home Depot Dam Protest; Take Action!

May 27th, 2009

2 Arrests in Home Depot Dam Protest; Take Action!

May 27th, 2009
Two activists were arrest­ed at a Home Depot in Glen­dale, CO, near Den­ver, after hang­ing a ban­ner off the build­ing that read, “Dam Home Depot, NOT Patag­o­nia!” Home Depot is under pres­sure from Inter­na­tion­al Rivers and allies for its ongo­ing finan­cial involve­ment with the main Chilean inter­est pro­mot­ing 5 dams in Chilean Patag­o­nia.

Home Depot has a share­hold­ers’ meet­ing com­ing up on Thurs­day, May 28 in Atlanta, Geor­gia. Con­tact them (before their May 28 share­hold­ers’ meet­ing if pos­si­ble, but cer­tain­ly dur­ing or after as well) and tell them to can­cel pur­chas­es of tim­ber from the Mat­te and Angeli­ni Groups (the com­pa­nies CMPC and Arau­co) for their involve­ment in plans to dam wild Patag­o­nia, and to drop the charges against Earth First! pro­test­ers in Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty, Col­orado. Call 1–800-553‑3199 (press exten­sion # 5), or send an email direct­ly from this site.

For more back­ground on the issue, vis­it Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ Patag­o­nia page.

—

More South Amer­i­can Dam News

Chilean Patag­o­nia: Inter­na­tion­al Rivers deployed two large ban­ners at Home Depot’s annu­al share­hold­er meet­ing in Atlanta, GA, USA, on May 28, demand­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion sev­er ties with the two com­pa­nies push­ing plans to dam 5 rivers in wild Patag­o­nia. Inside the meet­ing, pro­test­ers brought their demands direct­ly to the company’s board.

The action came only a day after 2 Earth First! activists were arrest­ed for drop­ping a sim­i­lar ban­ner off a Home Depot in Col­orado. For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Dam Home Depot and Save Patag­o­nia, vis­it Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ Patag­o­nia page.

Brazil: At least 7 peo­ple were killed when a water stor­age dam burst, flood­ing the city of Cocal da Estação, pop­u­la­tion 30,000. Thou­sands were left home­less or with­out elec­tric­i­ty. Fol­low­ing the acci­dent, a Brazil­ian dam expert esti­mat­ed that 200 oth­er dams in the coun­try are at risk of fail­ure.

In bet­ter news, a fed­er­al judge has sus­pend­ed the envi­ron­men­tal per­mit for the Belo Monte dam on the Xin­gu riv­er, due to insuf­fi­cient con­sid­er­a­tion of the effects on indige­nous peo­ple. The Xin­gu dams have drawn a great deal of oppo­si­tion on both legal grounds and from indige­nous nations whose ter­ri­to­ry would be flood­ed or degrad­ed if they go through. They are part of a much larg­er plan to scale up Brazil’s ener­gy infra­struc­ture through the con­struc­tion of mas­sive hydro­elec­tric and nuclear plants.

Peru: The Cen­tral Ashanin­ka del Rio Ene (CARE), rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the indige­nous Ashanin­ka com­mu­ni­ties of the Ene Val­ley, declared its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the planned Pak­itza­pan­go hydro­elec­tric dam stat­ing, that “the Ashanin­ka com­mu­ni­ties of the Ene riv­er … Repu­di­ate the use of the Ashanin­ka word Pak­itza­pan­go in light of its spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance for the Ashanin­ka Peo­ple of Peru [and] Demand that any activ­i­ty such as research, pro­mo­tions, reports, meet­ings or pro­pos­als that sup­port or pro­mote the con­struc­tion of the Pak­itza­pan­go dam are imme­di­ate­ly called off. The Ashanin­ka of the Ene val­ley will NOT per­mit the entry of any insti­tu­tion car­ry­ing out any of the men­tioned activ­i­ties.”

Read the full dec­la­ra­tion.

UPDATE (June 4 2009): It appears that the dams planned for Ashanin­ka ter­riotry in Peru are intend­ed to sell elec­tric­i­ty to Brazil, pri­mar­i­ly for min­ing, met­al pro­cess­ing and indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture indus­tries in the East­ern Ama­zon.

Eco-VIllage Occupation London 6th June Update + Other News.

Hel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

Eco flyerHel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

The lat­est from the Tyt­ing com­mu­ni­ty farm occu­pa­tion — infor­ma­tion on how you can get involved and sup­port the action.

And some inter­est­ing facts about the land in Britain.

ECO-VILLAGE OCCUPATION

The Eco vil­lage occu­pa­tion begins on the 6th June. Meet at Water­loo Sta­tion at 10AM under the clock. Please try to be on time.

********Please Note**********

If you are com­ing for the open­ing stage of the eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion, you will need to bring a tent, water and food sup­plies. If you have access to kitchen equip­ment and oth­er use­ful tat that you would be OK to loan, please bring it along too.

***************************

The Eco-Vil­lage Occu­pa­tion is about to begin. Infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties lie ahead; what will hap­pen depends on what we make it. By cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty in the heart of the urban jun­gle, we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise the con­scious­ness of urban dwellers all around and shine a light on a way of liv­ing that goes far to solv­ing the prob­lem of the destruc­tion of peo­ple and plan­et.

Dur­ing the last pub­lic plan­ning meet­ing, we had con­sen­sus on the fol­low­ing issues:

- A no vehi­cle on site pol­i­cy. In order to max­i­mize liv­ing space and encour­age peo­ple to come to the vil­lage via sus­tain­able means.

- Acoustic music only. So that we don’t make ene­mies of the neigh­bours.

- All major deci­sions in the eco-vil­lage to be decid­ed via the con­sen­su­al deci­sion mak­ing of all the peo­ple in the eco-vil­lage.

Please come along and join us. Ide­al­ly, we are look­ing for com­mit­ted peo­ple who share in the vision of the eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty and who are able to com­mit for an indef­i­nite peri­od, how­ev­er if you sim­ply want to stay for a night or two or even vis­it for a day, please feel free to come along.

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

www.tlio.org.uk

con­tact Car­olyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or

diggers360@yahoo.co.uk

Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm Occu­pa­tion.

Six weeks ago a group of peo­ple (some fresh from the Raven’s Ait occu­pa­tion in Kingston) assert­ing their com­mon law right to live and grow food, com­menced the occu­pa­tion of Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm in Half Pen­ny Lane Guild­ford. (a pub­licly owned site which has been vacant for sev­er­al years).

Guild­ford coun­cil (the own­er of the prop­er­ty) has been try­ing with­out suc­cess and with much local oppo­si­tion to sell the com­mu­ni­ty farm off by divid­ing it into small­er lots.

The coun­cil were grant­ed an ‘inter­im pos­ses­sion order’ last Wednes­day (27th May) and threat­ened to send in the police to remove any­one still on the site. On Fri­day morn­ing, var­i­ous con­trac­tors arrived and board­ed up the farm­house (but no police).

Far from dent­ing their morale, the threat of force­ful evic­tion has sim­ply made those enjoy­ing life at the farm more deter­mined to stay their ground.

To see a video of what’s been hap­pen­ing at the farm please click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKe_uCHpokU

This occu­pa­tion is open to any­one who would like to be part of the com­mu­ni­ty, grow veg­eta­bles and live in a sus­tain­able way, whilst help­ing to retain com­mon rights to a valu­able and beau­ti­ful piece of com­mon land. If you want to get involved, sim­ply grab a tent and some food (plus some seeds if you have them) and come along. Here is a map of the loca­tion of the farm.

Facts about the land in Britain

did you know that.…

In Britain 70% of land is still owned by less than 1% of the pop­u­la­tion
Less than 8% of the coun­try is under con­crete
50% of the land in Eng­land and Wales remains unreg­is­tered
the Church of Eng­land has ‘mis­laid’ 1.5 mil­lion acres it owned 100 years ago
the Roy­al Fam­i­ly now own or con­trol the equiv­a­lent of an aver­age-sized coun­ty in Eng­land.

* infor­ma­tion cour­tesy of www.who-owns-britain.com

Otaraua hapu save wahi tapu from oil pipeline in Aotearoa

28th May 2009
The Ota­raua hapu in Tarana­ki began pack­ing up their occu­pa­tion camp today after final­ly pro­tect­ing their wahi tapu, from Grey­mouth Petro­le­um’s new pipeline.

Greymouth occupation28th May 2009
The Ota­raua hapu in Tarana­ki began pack­ing up their occu­pa­tion camp today after final­ly pro­tect­ing their wahi tapu, from Grey­mouth Petro­le­um’s new pipeline.

After occu­py­ing the entrance to the well site and dis­rupt­ing work on the new well for more than two months, the hapu’s request to have Tiko­ran­gi Pa offi­cial­ly iden­ti­fied as a wahi tapu by the New Ply­mouth Dis­trict Coun­cil, was approved for an inde­pen­dent review last night.

After pre­vi­ous­ly demand­ing a writ­ten agree­ment from GMP, the hapu informed Grey­mouth Petro­le­um via fax yes­ter­day, stat­ing it was will­ing to accept a ver­bal state­ment by CEO Mark Dun­phy that GMP would not drill a pipeline through Tiko­ran­gi Pa. The hapu seem con­fi­dent that the Dis­trict Coun­cil review, due out in a few months, will pro­vide the pro­tec­tion they need for their pa.

Mr Door­bar said while the occu­pa­tion had brought the hapu togeth­er and clos­er to achiev­ing a com­mon goal, the fight was “not over”.

“It is impor­tant oil com­pa­nies who work in our com­mu­ni­ties under­stand the impact they have, not just on tan­ga­ta when­ua but on the wider farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty … for our­selves we feel we have achieved the out­comes of why we under­took this occu­pa­tion. Grey­mouth Petro­le­um did not drill through Tiko­ran­gi Pa. It remains to be seen whether or not we have to return to any form of peace­ful occu­pa­tion in the future.”

Updates: Day 11 | Day 17 | Day 55