Peru Indigenous In Standoff With Government

May 22nd 2009
For more than a month, indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon have been maintaining blockades of roads, rivers, airports and oil and gas pipelines to protest a series of new laws that would lead to increased industrial exploitation of their territories. The decrees were passed in accordance with the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

May 22nd 2009
For more than a month, indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon have been maintaining blockades of roads, rivers, airports and oil and gas pipelines to protest a series of new laws that would lead to increased industrial exploitation of their territories. The decrees were passed in accordance with the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

An estimated 13,000 people from 65 tribes and 1200 communities are taking part in the protests.

In response, President Alan Garcia declared a state of emergency, suspended civil liberties and dispatched the army to the affected regions. The Peruvian and Argentinian national oil companies have both been forced to cease operations in the region.

The police, military and extraction companies have used violence to attempt to break the blockades, resulting in injuries and disappearances — but the indigenous groups are refusing to back down. Despite Garcia’s insistence that none of the laws will be revisited, the Peruvian legislature has repealed one of the 10 laws and opened negotiations about the other nine.

The Peruvian government’s response to the crisis has sparked outrage among indigenous people and their allies worldwide, and the Peruvian mission to the United Nations was recently met with protests in New York.

For links to more news stories, visit Intercontinental Cry.

For more information, updates and photos/video of police brutality at the protests, visit Amazon Watch.

See also:

Perenco to Drill for Oil in Territory of Uncontacted Indigenous (January 7, 2009)

Peru Indigenous Issue Oil Ultimatum (October 22, 2008)

Indigenous Victory in Peru! (August 24, 2008)

‘Mother Earth in climate crisis’ say indigenous people

12 May 2009
A statement by indigenous representatives from around the world describes ‘Mother Earth (as) no longer in a period of climate change, but climate crisis.’

12 May 2009
A statement by indigenous representatives from around the world describes ‘Mother Earth (as) no longer in a period of climate change, but climate crisis.’

The statement, known as the Anchorage Declaration, was released after indigenous people from the Arctic, North America, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and Russia met in Anchorage, Alaska for the ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change’.

‘We are deeply alarmed by the accelerating climate devastation brought about by unsustainable development,’ the Declaration says. ‘We are experiencing profound and disproportionate adverse impacts on our cultures, human and environmental health, human rights, well-being, traditional livelihoods, food systems and food sovereignty, local infrastructure, economic viability, and our very survival as Indigenous Peoples.

‘Mother Earth is no longer in a period of climate change, but in climate crisis. We therefore insist on an immediate end to the destruction and desecration of the elements of life.’

The Declaration lists fourteen specific calls for action. These include reducing levels of global carbon emissions; indigenous participation in climate change debate; the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in schemes to ‘Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’ (REDD); the abandonment of ‘false solutions’ to climate change such as nuclear energy, ‘clean coal’ and agrofuels; the recognition by governments of indigenous peoples’ rights; and the return and restoration of ‘lands, territories, waters, forests, sea ice and sacred sites’ taken from indigenous peoples by governments in the past.

The Declaration ends with an offer to ‘share with humanity our traditional knowledge. . . relevant to climate change, provided our fundamental rights. . . are fully recognized and respected. We reiterate the urgent need for collective action.’

Read the Anchorage Declaration

Panama: Campesinos arrested over gold mine

June 5, 2009

Late last month, a group of demonstrators were violently arrested by police at a roadblock in the northern Panamanian province of Cocle.

June 5, 2009

Late last month, a group of demonstrators were violently arrested by police at a roadblock in the northern Panamanian province of Cocle.

The roadblock was first set up on May 9, 2009 to resist the Petaquilla Gold mine project, which is owned by the Panama company Minera Petaquilla, and developed by two others: the Vancouver-based junior company, Petaquilla Minerals and the Toronto-based company, Inmet Mining.

As a many as 24 local communities are opposed to the project because of the “aberrant predation and destruction of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, where hundreds of hectares of virgin jungle and forest have been cut down, and where the mountain passes and rivers that made the area one of the most important in the world due to its rich biodiversity have been destroyed and polluted,” notes a May 14 report by La Estrella.

The communities also say “they have never been consulted, but rather deceived, and their lands have been taken from them unfairly in many ways, including the destruction and burning of ranches of indigenous peoples, without even indemnifying the local residents and without any authority of the PRD government fulfilling its constitutional obligation to defend the communities.”

Also reporting on the arrests, La Estrella says 12 demonstrators were arrested in total (other reports say it was 30 demonstrators), “among them the Chiriqui environmentalist Carmencita Tedman. A peasant who did not want to be identified, said that he was really afraid, because policemen were hitting the protestors mercilessly, even women and children. He added that when all this was happening Petaquilla Gold helicopters were surveying the scene.”

The police used rods, and shot pellets and tear gas to subdue the demonstrators.

For background on the Petaquilla Gold mine and local efforts to stop it, visit miningwatch.ca

Perenco and armed forces break indigenous blockade (Peru)

6 May 2009
A gunboat belonging to Peru’s armed forces has broken through an Indian river blockade in the northern Peruvian Amazon.

anti-Perenco crossed spears6 May 2009
A gunboat belonging to Peru’s armed forces has broken through an Indian river blockade in the northern Peruvian Amazon.

The gunboat, together with at least one boat belonging to Anglo-French oil company Perenco, broke the blockade at 5:15 am on 4 May. The blockade, organised by local indigenous people, is on the Napo river, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon.

Peru’s indigenous organisation, AIDESEP, condemned the use of a boat belonging to the armed forces, describing it as a ‘use and abuse of their power’. The blockade forms part of Amazon-wide protests by Peru’s indigenous people against government policies and the invasion of their territories by multinational companies. The protests have been going on for almost a month.

Perenco holds the licence to work in a remote part of Peru known as Lot 67, accessible via the Napo River. It is an area inhabited by at least two of the world’s last uncontacted tribes – the company is under increasing pressure to withdraw from the project.

Less than a fortnight ago Perenco’s chairman, Francois Perrodo, met Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, in the presidential palace in Lima, pledging to invest US$2 billion in Lot 67. Just days later the government passed a law declaring Perenco’s work a ‘national necessity’.

Orissa Tribes stage mass protest against British mining company Vedanta – 25 April 2009

Several hundred tribespeople today staged a protest against FTSE-100 company Vedanta, as it bids massively to expand its controversial aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa. The refinery occupies land belonging to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyamgiri hills, home of the isolated Dongria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Several hundred tribespeople today staged a protest against FTSE-100 company Vedanta, as it bids massively to expand its controversial aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa. The refinery occupies land belonging to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyamgiri hills, home of the isolated Dongria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Over a hundred families lost their homes to their refinery. Many more lost their farm land and with it their food-security and self sufficiency.

Vedanta’s refinery expansion project is integrally linked to its plan to mine the Dongria Kondh’s mountain home. Vedanta’s mine is needed to provide the refinery with a nearby, and cost efficient, source of bauxite – the raw material for aluminium.

One Dongria Kondh man said, ‘Mining only makes profit for the rich. We will become beggars if the company destroys our mountain and our forest so that they can make money. We cannot give our mountain, it is our life. And other tribes will also suffer, those who live on the rivers that come from our mountain.’

Today’s protest is just the latest in a string of demonstrations against Vedanta’s activities.

More info: www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

Indians blockade main Amazon tributary – 24 April 2009

A large number of Indians have blockaded one of the Amazon’s main tributaries, the Napo River, in response to the violation of their rights by oil companies and Peru’s government.

A large number of Indians have blockaded one of the Amazon’s main tributaries, the Napo River, in response to the violation of their rights by oil companies and Peru’s government.

The protesters have blockaded the Napo with canoes and a cable to stop oil company vessels getting upriver. According to sources, two boats, including one from the Anglo-French company Perenco, have managed to break through the blockade. Three shots were allegedly fired at the Indians who chased after them.

The blockade of the Napo River is just one of many protests currently taking place across the Peruvian Amazon. Coordinated by Peru’s Amazon Indian organisation, AIDESEP, the protests are in response to government policies seen by the Indians as discriminatory and threatening to their communal lands. AIDESEP is lobbying for the repeal of several laws they claim violate their rights, and for the creation of new reserves for uncontacted tribes.

The government has responded by sending police and soldiers to areas where protests are taking place. AIDESEP has criticised these measures, calling them ‘intimidation’ and saying that the protests are peaceful.

Perenco is working in a part of the Amazon inhabited by two of the world’s last uncontacted tribes. The company does not acknowledge the tribes exist.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘All over the world tribal peoples are being forced to resort to blockades to try and protect their remaining land. We’re seeing this in India and Malaysia as well as South America.’

www.survival-international.org

CALL OUT: Resist the bailiffs at Justice Not Crisis Birmingham squat

At 0900 hours on Tuesday 21st April 2009 bailiffs will attempt to evict members of Justice Not Crisis from 310, 312, 314 and 318 Pershore Road, followed immediately after at 11AM, an attempted eviction at the Beechwood Hotel, Bristol Road.

At 0900 hours on Tuesday 21st April 2009 bailiffs will attempt to evict members of Justice Not Crisis from 310, 312, 314 and 318 Pershore Road, followed immediately after at 11AM, an attempted eviction at the Beechwood Hotel, Bristol Road.

We intend to resist evictions at all five properties and will stage a roof-top demonstration at the Beechwood Hotel. We require as much support and assistance as possible, and a briefing will take place at the Beechwood Hotel at 0800 hours on Tuesday 21st April. Press and media have already indicated they will be attending the Beechwood to cover our resistance of the bailiffs’ eviction.

Anyone wishing to join us this evening/night for our barbecue and drink is welcome. Rooms will be available for anybody wishing to stay. Further information can be obtained on 07874180014

Updates to the days events will appear on our website throughout the day Tuesday 21st April.

Demonstrators target Graff Diamonds in Solidarity with Kahlahari Bushmen (11.2.09)

Survival’s campaign targeting Graff Diamonds over its involvement in a diamond mine planned on the land of Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana has stepped up a gear.

Bushmen Demo- London 11.2.09Survival’s campaign targeting Graff Diamonds over its involvement in a diamond mine planned on the land of Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana has stepped up a gear. Thirty protesters gathered on the 11.2.09 outside Graff’s flagship London store holding placards saying ‘Boycott Graff’ and ‘Botswana diamonds: Bushmen despair’.

The store is based in the fashion epicentre of London surrounded by shops from Yves San Lauren, Chanel etc. The diamond industries main product is high image and thus has shown itself to be sometimes more susceptible to pressure than other resource sectors such as mining and oil. Previous pickets by Survival International and public shaming of fashion houses and top models resulted in De Beers pulling out of the planned diamond mining in the Kalahari.

There are 100,000 Bushmen in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Angola. They are the indigenous people of southern Africa, and have lived there for tens of thousands of years.

In the middle of Botswana lies the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a reserve created both to protect the traditional territory of the 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushmen (and their neighbours the Bakgalagadi), and the wildlife and ecosystem of which are a part.

In the early 1980s, diamonds were discovered in the reserve. Soon after, government ministers went into the reserve to tell the Bushmen living there that they would have to leave because of the diamond finds.

In three big clearances, in 1997, 2002 and 2005, virtually all the Bushmen were forced out. Their homes were dismantled, their school and health post were closed, their water supply was destroyed and the people were threatened and trucked away.

They now live in resettlement camps outside the reserve. Rarely able to hunt, and arrested and beaten when they do, they are dependent on government handouts. They are now gripped by alcoholism, boredom, depression, and illnesses such as TB and HIV/AIDS.

Unless they can return to their ancestral lands, their unique societies and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die.

Although the Bushmen won the right in court to go back to their lands in 2006, the government has done everything it can to make their return impossible. It has:

Banned them from using their water borehole,
Refused to issue a single permit to hunt on their land (despite Botswana’s High Court ruling in December that its refusal to issue permits was unlawful),
Arrested more than 50 Bushmen for hunting to feed their families,
Banned them from taking their small herds of goats back to the reserve.

Its policy is clearly to intimidate and frighten the Bushmen into staying in the resettlement camps, and making the lives of those who have gone back to their ancestral land impossible.

More information on the Kalahari Bushmen can be found on their own website : www.iwant2gohome.org or the website of Survival International (which is updated more often): www.survival-international.org/tribes/bushmen

Philippines: with 5 Members Missing, the Mamanwa Hold Strong

February 12, 2009
At least 400 members of the Mamanwa tribe in Surigao del Sur, northwestern Mindanao, are in their second week of a blockade against four mining companies: Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC), Oriental Synergy Mining Corporation (OSMC), Case Mining Company (CMC) and Platinum Group Mining Company (PGMC).

February 12, 2009
At least 400 members of the Mamanwa tribe in Surigao del Sur, northwestern Mindanao, are in their second week of a blockade against four mining companies: Taganito Mining Corporation (TMC), Oriental Synergy Mining Corporation (OSMC), Case Mining Company (CMC) and Platinum Group Mining Company (PGMC).

The Mamanwa previously sent notices of termination to the companies, informing them that they will longer be permitted to mine their ancestral territories because the companies have never paid them any royalty fees.

Under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), Indigenous People in the Philippines are entitled to “a royalty payment… which shall not be less than 1% of the Gross Output of the mining operations in the area.”

Only recently has the Mamanwa learned of this.

In a statement dated February 4, day seven of the barricade, Datu Joel Buklas from the Taganito Mamanwa Association, notes that TMC has been operating in the region since the 1960s, and recently “got a new contract to operate for another 25 years in the red mountain of Surigao del Sur.”

“The moving truck loads of nickel ore is a regular scene for motorist passing along the Claver highway.”

“Literally, the red mountain of Claver is moving inch by inch every day. Sumitomo Metal Mining Company together with TMC planned to start this year the construction of a 30,000 ton-a-year smelting plant which would start its operation by 2012.” Meanwhile, Sumitomo is “determined to start the construction this year of the one-billion dollar project.”

“This is our land even before these mining companies came, we were already here, we were forcibly ousted from these lands against our will and we hope concerned government agencies whom we have been asking for years will wake up.”

“Today, 4 February 2009, is our seventh day of human barricade along the highway of Taganito, Claver, Surigao del Norte to demand before the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) on our share agreed for allowing the mining companies to ruin our lives and our ancestral domain.”
SURFACE THE MAMANWA FIVE

With the blockade still standing, the Mamanwa report that five of their carpenters, who helped put the blockade together, have been missing since they left the site to harvest food for the protesters on January 29.

Nobody knows what happened to them, however the Mamanwa point out that in December they informed the Philippine National Police, the local government and the NCIP that a blockade was in the works – “after repeated attempts of sending out notices of termination of mining operations as well as demands for just compensation proved futile,” says a February 12 statement from the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center – Kasama sa Kalikasan/FOE- Philippines (LRC-KsK).

The LRC-KsK is calling upon the Arroyo government “to exert all its efforts in locating the five IP protesters and put to justice whoever caused their disappearance,” and that “the Arroyo government do away with its obsession for mining generated revenues in the face of overwhelming rejection of IP communities who have long borne the brunt of the destruction, displacement, discrimination and disempowerment that mining operations bring with it.”

They also request that people take a moment to Call on the government:

* To surface the five missing Mamanwas;
* To respect and protect the barricade of the Mamanwt;
* To scrap the Philippine Mining Act of 1995; and
* To make sure that mining companies in Mamanwa ancestral domain respect indigenous peoples rights, give just compensation to the Mamanwa community and stop all mining operation.

You can send your appeals to:

The Chief of Police
Chief Director General Jesus Verzosa
Philippine National Police
Email: pio@pnp.gov

The Chief of Staff (Armed Forces)
Gen. Alexander B. Yano
Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines
Email: via website: http://www.afp.mil.ph/ghq/csafp/index.htm (follow link on left-hand side to guestbook)

The Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Jose “Lito” L. Atienza, Jr
Email: web@denr.gov
Email add: osec@denr.gov

The Mines and Gosciences Bureau Regional Director – Region 13
ALILO C. ENSOMO, JR.
e-mail: mgbrxiii@philcom. ph

With copies to:

The Chairperson of the Philippines Commission on Human Rights
Email: drpvq@chr.gov, atty_delima@yahoo.com

The Chairperson of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples
Atty. Eugenio A. Insigne
Email: resource@ncip. gov.ph

Ten Thousand People Encircle the Niyamgriji Mountains in Orissa, India

January 30 2009

January 30 2009
Three days ago, 10 thousand people, a majority of them tribal, formed a 17 km long human chain around the Niyamgrii mountains in Orissa, India. The people were protesting the plans of Vedanta, a British mining company, to start bauxite mining the mountains. Bauxite is the most important raw material for aluminum production and last year the Supreme Court said two of the planned mining projects could go ahead.

The protest was the second large-scale demonstration in ten days: on 17 January up to 7,000 protesters marched to the gates of Vedanta’s aluminium refinery in the nearby town of Lanjigarh.

“The ruling meant that an arm of the British-listed mining giant Vedanta could use bauxite from a mountain in Orissa which local hill tribes view as sacred,” says on BBC News and continues:

In a separate ruling last year, South Korean steel firm Posco was also given the go-ahead by the court for a $12bn plant in the same state. Environmental and tribal campaigners have called on India’s prime minister to halt the Vedanta project. They argue that India’s rush to development should not come at the expense of traditional and sustainable ways of life of tribal and marginalised people.

Many who took part in Tuesday’s protest brandished traditional weapons, such as bows and arrows. They carried placards with slogans including “Vedanta, Go Back” and “Stop mining in Niyamgiri”. Their demonstration was followed by a public meeting in which speakers railed against the London-based company, which is currently setting up a large alumina refinery in the area.

Dongia KhondSpeakers said they would oppose mining in the hills until their “last breath”. They demanded the immediate cancellation of the mining lease to Vedanta. “The Niyamgiri hill is the lifeline of the tribals and there is no way we can allow bauxite mining here,” Lingaraj Azad, a leader who spoke at the meeting, told the BBC.

The Dongria Kondh tribe, who live in the Niyamgiri hills, consider the hill sacred. They have been opposing the mining lease given to Vedanta for years, saying it would destroy their lives, livelihood, religion and culture. Environmentalists have also opposed plans to start bauxite mining, because they say that the area is ecologically sensitive. They say that if mining goes ahead it would lead to the destruction of forest, large scale displacement and would dry up or pollute dozens of rivers and streams.

Vedanta claims that “no-one is going to be displaced…” and that the company is “committed to sustainable development of the area.”

Protesting in front of Vedanta’s meetingsSamarendra Das, an Indian author, film maker and activist, who has been fighting the case of the Dongria Kondh tribe, says that the bauxite mining will lead to cultural genocide. The tribes will be forced to leave their lands and adapt to a lifestyle they do not want to. Samarendra and Felix Padel have written several articles about the consequenses of the bauxite mining and some of the have been puplished here on Saving Iceland’s website: Agya, What Do You Mean by Development? and DoubleDeath: Aluminium’s Links With Genocide.

Survival International’s director Stephen Corry said yesterday: “By these protests the Dongria Kondh are showing just how far the authorities have failed them. The fact that the machines are run by a major British company should be a cause for shame in the City of London. This is a scandal which won’t go away until Vedanta leaves the tribe in peace.”