Category: Global

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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.