Peru: Achuar Indigenous Leader on Prison Hunger Strike

Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13th, 2014  Achuar indige­nous leader Segun­do Gar­cía San­di began a hunger strike Jan. 7 to demand his free­dom at Huayabam­ba prison in Iqui­tos, Peru. Gar­cía San­di was arrest­ed Dec.

Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13th, 2014  Achuar indige­nous leader Segun­do Gar­cía San­di began a hunger strike Jan. 7 to demand his free­dom at Huayabam­ba prison in Iqui­tos, Peru. Gar­cía San­di was arrest­ed Dec. 5, on charges of tam­per­ing with an oil pipeline run by Argen­tine com­pa­ny Plus­petrol through his people’s ter­ri­to­ry in the remote north of Lore­to depart­ment. He claims he is being held ille­gal­ly with­out evi­dence, but a habeas cor­pus action filed by his sup­port­ers has met with no response by Peru’s judi­cial author­i­ties.

Gar­cía Sandi’s orga­ni­za­tion, the Río Cor­ri­entes Fed­er­a­tion of Native Com­mu­ni­ties (FECONACO), asserts the arrest is retal­i­a­tion for his demands for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. FECONACO reports that five Achuar chil­dren died in Decem­ber as a result of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion relat­ed to oil oper­a­tions in the area, and that a state of emer­gency announced by Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Manuel Pul­gar-Vidal in Octo­ber for the Cor­ri­entes Val­ley, call­ing for spe­cial mon­i­tor­ing, is going unen­forced. The Envi­ron­ment Min­istry in Novem­ber took the rare step of fin­ing Plus­petrol $7 mil­lion for con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to the Lore­to rain­for­est. (Servin­di, Jan. 11; La Región, Lore­to, Jan. 8; Mar­iátegui blog, Jan. 7; La Región, Dec. 20; AP, Nov. 27)