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.’

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