Action Alert: Demand Justice in Peru!

Join us in demanding justice for internationally-respected Peruvian indigenous leader Santiago Manuin! If you have not already done so, you have untill the end of the week to sign this global petition on behalf of Manuin. Peru’s Pro-Human Rights Association (APRODEH) will deliver the letter to Peruvian President Alan Garcia on August 10th in honor of the United Nations recent declaration of August 9th as International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. For a succinct summary of Manuin’s case, please see the below Associated Press article.

Please sign the petition today!

Sincerely, Amazon Watch Peru Campaign Team

Jail and trial are next for wounded Peru Indians

By ANDREW WHALEN, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 4, 2:00 am ET

CHICLAYO, Peru – Santiago Manuin is lucky to be alive. On June 5, the Awajun Indian leader was hit by at least four bullets when police broke up a protest by Indians over government plans for large-scale economic development of their ancestral lands in the Amazon.

Inside his hospital room, Manuin lies in a bed while a plastic pouch drains his intestines. Outside the door, five police officers lounge on wooden benches, AK-47 assault rifles resting across their knees.

Manuin is the most prominent of 48 protesters wounded in the June melee who face jail the moment hospital doctors sign discharge papers, according to Peru’s main Amazon Indian federation.

Critics of the government say it is no way to treat people who engaged in peaceful civil disobedience — blocking roads and rivers — to protect their traditional lands from the oil drilling, mining, farming and logging projects envisioned by President Alan Garcia.

Negotiations to resolve the dispute, involving 350,000 Amazon Indians, will be difficult if the government treats the protest leaders as criminals, the U.N. special envoy on indigenous rights, James Anaya, said last week.

The dark, wiry Manuin is more blunt.

“Justice doesn’t exist for the indigenous. The government values the police more than us and doesn’t want to acknowledge its mistake,” the 53-year-old apu, or tribal leader, said from his hospital bed.

The government’s mistake, Indian leaders and sympathizers say, has been to vilify protest leaders while failing to consider that police might have used excessive force. At least 10 civilians and 23 police officers were killed in the violence, while 200 civilians were wounded, 82 by gunshot, according to Peru’s ombudsman’s office.

“It’s very surprising that while there are criminal investigations against people accused of killing police, no one has been arrested or implicated for the abuses that led to the death of the indigenous protesters,” said Susan Lee, director of Amnesty International’s Americas program. Amnesty says it has gathered testimony telling of police abuses.

Peru’s justice minister, Auerelio Pastor, defended the police action before a U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva on Monday and said the government has no plans to drop any charges.

The government’s request that protesters clear the road “by no means justifies acts of violence, and the seizure of highways and interruption of public services is illegal,” he said.

Pastor also echoed a claim repeatedly voiced by Garcia: that unidentified foreign elements have incited the Indians to instigate the violence.

The president of AIDESEP, the Indian federation that organized the protests, says 120 Indians have been charged with crimes including murder and sedition. Many wounded Indians have not sought medical attention for fear of arrest, the federation’s president, Daysi Zapata, told The Associated Press.

AIDESEP’s top leader, Alberto Pizango, and two other officials of the organization have taken asylum in Nicaragua from sedition and rebellion charges.

In a July report following a visit to Peru, Anaya, the U.N. envoy, called for an independent, internationally backed investigation into the violence.

The government has yet to publicly respond.

Manuin is expected to be released from the main hospital in Chiclayo shortly after an operation this week to close the hole in his stomach and reconnect his intestines. He will then be jailed and tried on charges of inciting murder and unrest, which carry a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. His lawyer has appealed to reduce his arrest warrant to an order to appear in court.

The Jesuit-schooled Manuin is an internationally recognized activist who met with Spain’s Queen Sofia in 1994 after leading Awajun resistance to leftist rebels who tried to get his people to grow coca, the basis of cocaine.

On June 5, when heavily armed police advanced toward nearly 5,000 protesters at a highway blockade, he says he approached the officers seeking to talk.

“I never made it because they opened fire when I was about 50 meters (yards) away,” Manuin said. Bullets tore open his left side.

Other protesters saw he was hurt, and “hand-to-hand combat broke out to remove the guns from police,” he added.

Erroneous reports of Manuin’s death spurred a bloody reaction hours later when Awajun protesters killed 12 police officers they had taken captive at an oil pipeline station.

Manuin faults the government, not the police officers, who he says told Indian leaders on June 4 that their superiors in Lima had ordered them to clear the highway.

The Cabinet chief at the time, Yehude Simon, said the entire Cabinet voted to issue the order. He and the then-interior minister were replaced last month as Garcia sought to allay public criticism of his handling of the protests.

The Indians had been blockading jungle highways and rivers on and off since last August, demanding the revocation of 11 decrees issued by Peru’s president last year under the rubric of a free trade pact with the United States.

Peru’s Congress repealed two of the decrees after protests last year and two more after June’s bloodshed. Indians feared the decrees would lead to a widespread land and resource grab by private companies.

Despite the revocations of some of the decrees, 75 percent of Peru’s Amazon remains carved up into oil concessions, with the government owning all subsoil rights.

“If they want to put the Amazon up for sale, they’ll do it by spilling blood. Period,” Manuin said.

Please sign the petition today!

–FULL TEXT OF LETTER TO PERUVIAN PRESIDENT ALAN GARCIA BELOW–

Peru, July 21, 2009

Dr. Alan García Pérez
President of the Republic of Peru

Dear Mr. President -

As citizens of Peru and the world, we are writing to you about the disproportionate and violent police incursion carried out to remove protesting indigenous people in Bagua, Amazonas, that Santiago Munuin Valera, a 52 year old Awajun indigenous leader, has been seriously injured. At the moment that he was shot, he was unarmed and calling for peace.

Santiago Munuin, chief of the indigenous leaders (Apus) of the five River-basins of Santa María de Nieva, is one of the most important leaders of the Aguaruna-Huambisa communities. A pacifist and founder of the Jesuit Social Center SAIPE, he was also President of the Aguaruna-Huambisa Council (CAH) and the Organizing Committee for Respect of the Indigenous People of Condorcanqui Province, Amazonas. He has been internationally recognized for this commitment to the environment and human rights.

This past June 5th, Santiago Manuin was shot 8 times throughout his body with bullets coming from AKM rifles. As a product of this disproportionate use of force by members of the DINOES, the Awajun leader was rushed to the Las Mercedes hospital in Chiclayo.

This situation notwithstanding, this past June 13th, Francisco Miranda Caramutti, judge with the First Penal Court of Utcubamba, ordered the search, finding, capture, and booking (order no. 0610-09-1) of Santiago Manuin, for his responsibility in the confrontation that happened in “The Devil’s Curve”, in which dozens of people were killed, among them police and indigenous citizens. Given Manuin’s history, it is surprising and outrageous that the court is attempting to hold him responsible for the lamentable death of police officers.

In recent weeks, some authorities have pressured for this pacifist indigenous leader to be released from the hospital and taken to the local jail, even as his health situation continues to be delicate and requires medical attention. Manuin has 8 gunshot wounds in his body and is at great risk of infection. Because of the gunshots, his colon is outside of his body that requires a prolonged and intensive treatment. Additionally, he is diabetic, which makes more difficult the healing of his wounds and requires new surgical procedures. At the moment the hospital’s doctors have indicated that he won’t be released until he has recovered fully.

Similar to the case of Santiago Manuin, there are other cases of indigenous leaders facing legal charges, investigations, and legal persecution. The Peruvian government intends to hold them responsible, both materially and intellectually, for various violent acts. Amongst them we mention Alberto Pizango Chota, Saúl Puerta Peña, Cervando Puerta Peña, Teresita Antazú López, Marcial Mudarra Taki, Daysi Zapata Fasabi, Walter Kategari Iratsimery, Roger Muro Guardián, and Milton Silva, amongst leaders, even though there isn’t valid evidence to support the accusations against them.

In this regard, the recent report on the events in Bagua and Utcubamba by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, “reiterates the recommendation to revise the criminal charges against the individuals and indigenous leaders and urges the State to carefully justify future claims, given the special circumstances that have arisen surrounding the alleged crimes and the need to create adequate conditions for dialogue”.

The Special Rapporteur also emphasizes that “while recognizing the need to preserve the public order and to investigate and punish those responsible for crimes and/ or human rights violations, the use of criminal recourse should not be the standard route for dealing with social unrest and protest, but should instead be applied as a last resort and should be strictly limited to the principle of social necessity in a democratic society”.

We have no doubt that behind the arrest warrant of Santiago Manuin and other leaders, exist forces not only driven by legal motivations but also by a political interest to criminalize public protests in Peru.

Given this, we the citizens of the world in exercise of our rights and ethical responsibility to defend life and human rights from any kind of abuse, are asking that:

An investigation be initiated around the attempt on the life of Santiago Manuin Valera (ID# 337600081, 52 years old) and that the material and intellectual authors be brought to justice.
Economic reparations be paid to this Awajun leader, that he be provided with quality medical expertise independent of the State, and that the State guarantee his health and complete recovery, assuming the costs of medical attention for the injuries he has suffered.
Legal harassment against Santiago Manuin and other social leaders be ended, that the police officers that surround the hospital where Manuin is being interned be called off, and that the arrest warrant be changed to a summons for a court appearance.
We reiterate our belief in the innocence of Santiago Manuin, for whom we are expressing our solidarity.

Please sign the petition today!

221 Pine St., 4th floor San Francisco, CA 94104
Tel 415-487-9600 www.amazonwatch.org

Weekend Update #21: Gracias Para Peru

Russell Means offers thanks and encouragement on the continuing struggle in Peru. Much has been accomplished thanks to you, and much more needs be done.

Weekend Update #21: Gracias Para Peru from Russell Means on Vimeo.

In June, the 400,000 indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon won a significant victory: after ten weeks of protests, strikes and bloodshed, they persuaded Peru’s President and Congress to repeal laws that ignored their rights and threatened the Amazon rainforest.

The struggle cost scores of lives (the exact number is yet to be established). The non-violent indigenous protesters gained broad support both nationally and internationally as military attacks on the protesters became more brutal and deadly.

“We felt that the laws annulled our existence. That’s why we rose up,” said Awajún leader Santiago Manuin, who was seriously wounded in the most deadly protest at Bagua.

Manuin continued: “Look at history, what’s happened to indigenous peoples, the deforestation, contaminated rivers…This is development? We don’t want this kind of development. Peru shouldn’t want this kind of development…But we are never consulted. They never tell us how they will assure that our children can continue to live in the forest, how they will protect the forest. We need a kind of development that starts from the forest and is for the forest; it will also be the best for Peru.”

What the protests gained:

– Two laws that would have opened the Amazon to unrestrained exploitation by logging, mining and oil companies were repealed by Congress.
- A process of negotiations was established.
- President Garcia will meet with Amazon indigenous leaders on July 20.
- The national Ombudsman introduced a bill that would require consultation with indigenous peoples, in compliance with ILO Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- A Truth Commission will investigate the military attack on indigenous protesters at Bagua that cost at least 34 lives.

Why more international pressure is needed:

Labor, environmental and indigenous organizations continued strikes this week, pressing Congress to repeal the entire packet of 99 laws that were approved to facilitate a Free Trade Agreement with the US. President Garcia authorized a military response. The government issued arrest warrants on charges of sedition for indigenous leaders, forcing three leaders to seek political asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy.

Indigenous defenders of the Amazon rainforest are asking us to keep up the pressure on the President and Congress. Our letters should support indigenous peoples’ demands to:

– Cease the criminalization of protest
- Stop police and military actions against indigenous leaders and communities
- Align Peruvian laws with ILO Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- Guarantee indigenous peoples the right to free, prior and informed consent.

Please send letters to:

Excelentísimo Señor
Presidente Alan García
Despacho Presidencial
Jirón de la Unión S/N 1 cda
Lima 1
PERU

If possible, send copies of your letter to:

Rafael Vásquez Rodríguez, President of Congress
(rvasquezr@congreso.gob.pe, Fax +51 1- 311- 77- 03 )

Public Ombudsman Office of Peru
(centrodeatencionvirtual@defensoria.gob.pe)

Peruvian Ambassador in your country (for contact details – see http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Peru

UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(indigenous@ohchr.org)

Photo courtesy of Servindi.org

Originally from Global Response:

–http://globalresponse.org/emailcampaigns.php?record=2318

Further Action Needed – Peru

–http://globalresponse.org/emailcampaigns.php?record=2318

Action Update: Peru Indigenous Rights

We still have to massively support the Peruvian Indians.
~Russell Means

The following message is from Amazonwatch.org

June 27th, 2009

After 70 days of indigenous protests, culminating in the deadly events of June 5th and 6th, the tensions appear to be subsiding as the government concedes to indigenous demands. Crucially, last week the Peruvian Congress repealed Decrees 1090 and 1064, two of the nine “free trade” decrees opposed by indigenous peoples.

President Alan Garcia has also reversed his racist discourse against Amazonian indigenous peoples, admitting “errors and exaggerations.” Garcia’s already dismal public approval rating has recently slid from 30 to 21 percent. More than 90 percent of those surveyed said Garcia should have consulted indigenous peoples before instituting decrees that affect their rights, with more than 85 percent disapproved of his handling of the conflict. Just today, the Government lifted the State of Emergency that had been in effect since May 9.

While these milestones are significant, there is still a long road ahead. AIDESEP (the Inter-Ethnic Association for Development in the Peruvian Rain Forest) continues to demand that the government drop all outstanding legal charges against their leaders and representatives.
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?AmazonWatch/9ee1fe4e9c/2228b559b1/c789abfcb7/id=1875

In the coming days and weeks, we will continue to call for an independent investigation into the violence in both Bagua and Station 6; for the repeal or significant reform of the remaining 7 controversial decrees, and for a guarantee that the government not try to put in play similar executive decrees or legislative initiatives.

In this continuing struggle for justice and indigenous self-determination in the Peruvian Amazon, your acts of solidarity are of utmost importance.

Below are the listing of Legislative Decrees opposed by AIDESEP, including the repealed 1090 & 1064, and the corresponding concerns of AIDESEP.  Taken cumulatively, the decrees represent an assault on the rights of indigenous small landholders, as well as individual and communal rights.

Controversial Legislative Decrees:

Decree	Concerns of AIDESEP
994: Promotes private investment to expand the agricultural frontier	Risk that it increases the sale of community lands to private businesses
995: Re-launches the Agricultural Bank	Authorizing a larger portion of private investors, it shifts from being a bank for small farmers
1020: Consolidation of rural property for agrarian credit	Favors large land owners vs. interests of small land owners
1060: Regulates the National System of Agrarian Innovation	Stimulating biotechnology, it favors the importation of transgenic foods into the agricultural market
1064: Approves the judicial regime for use of agrarian lands	Eliminates previous consultation procedure with indigenous communities, which threatens their rights
1081: Creation of National System of Hydrological Resources	Allows for privatization of water resources
1083: Promotion of efficient use of water resources and the need for efficiency certificates	Favors farmers who use technological watering techniques
1089: Establishes extraordinary temporary regime for formalization and titling of rural lands	Threatens community rights because it promotes the sale of lands to third-parties for extraction of oil and mining resources, amongst other activities
1090: Establishes a National Plan of Forest Development	Sells the forest to private companies for commercial exploitation

The Middle of the Fire: Field Report from Peru

The following is an open letter from Independant Peruvian Journalist, Juan Tincopa. He has worked for several years with Indigenous Peoples on land and resource issues.

June 14th, 2009

It is true that the families of the indigenous people that the government had killed took policeman as hostages, because they were scared and wanted to protect their own lives. The truth is that the government is totally responsible for the violence and that the Indian people had nothing to do with the other circumstances that happened, because the government started to shoot to kill Indians. THE REAL PROBLEM BEGAN WHEN THE government GAVE THE ORDER TO SHOOT AT PEOPLE’S BODIES. The police said that they are there to respect the order and law. Which law gives them the right to shoot people to kill?

Some policeman were shot, because some indigenous people had some military experience from their service as soldiers. They fought and took the police guns and used them for their defense. They were not terrorists. No Indian was armed. No Indian was prepared for violence. Everything became violent because the government planned this massacre and made the people desperate to survive.

What can you do? What can anybody do? When you are in the middle of shots fired and you don’t have chance to survive it without a fight?

This incident was planned by the government because they are extremely criminal and they don’t like that indigenous people have a reason and real rights by the law. That is the way that the government is looking for violence to justify the massacre and to crush the indigenous people before they take their lands.

You need to get information to the leaders of the Indian movement now. Nobody knows until now how many Aguarunas, indigenous people, were Killed by the police. I can only guess that it is probably between 50 to 200. The problem is that the police burned these bodies, put them in plastic bags, and dropped them into the rivers or into the jungle, and others were probably buried somewhere. Until now we don’t have any possibility to know how many were killed. It is impossible, but there were a lot. The indigenous people some times in many places don’t have IDs because they don’t need it for life in the jungle. Many of them doesn’t speak Spanish as well. Many of them are missing right now.

On the 7th, 8th and 9th of July, all labor and social organizations in Peru are going to strike. This is probably a big help to stop the government. I hope so. We need to pray and help for the peace. The government must understand that they can’t do the criminal actions again and again.

Every human in the world needs to help the indigenous people in Peru because they are performing right and lawful actions in defense of their home, and also in defense of the Amazon, that is the defense of the life and of the heart, the life and future for everybody.

I’m sorry, my English is not accurate and good, buy it is only my perspective.

You need to get information from Indian movement leaders; AIDESEP and CAOI. I know they don’t have powerful media ways to speak their truth, but we have to try to help. Every day that is coming we need to get together for this help. Next 25 of June we send to you the QAWAQ # 7 where we have some opinion about this conflict of our brothers.

We don’t think we can change the official media. They are liars and they are lying every day, but we can start to tell the truth. We don’t need to dispute small stupid things like if the Indians responded or not to violence. How you can imagine that it is impossible? That is the point, the government was looking for this reaction in order to have a pretext for the repression and to take away the rights of indigenous people.

The Indian case is their home, their peace and the peace for everybody. They keep their words after this massacre, and the government doesn’t stop and keeps trying to involve violence in this conflict.

We are peaceful people. But don’t tell me that everybody can stay quiet when the government starts to kill them. We are not looking for violence. We are not stupid, but, how can you control the situation in the middle of a fire? We need to tell the government: Stop to fire, stop to persecution, stop to massacres, stop taking away the homes of the Indians.

I hope you and you family are fine.

Juan Tincop

PERU: ‘Police Are Throwing Bodies in the River’

Written by Milagros Salazar
Tuesday, 09 June 2009

(IPS) – There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed.

The authorities, who describe last Friday’s incident as a “clash” between the police and protesters manning a roadblock, say 22 policemen and nine civilians were killed.

But leaders of the two-month roadblock say at least 40 indigenous people, including three children, were killed and that the authorities are covering up the massacre by throwing bodies in the river.

And foreign activists on the scene in the town of Bagua, in the northern province of Amazonas, report that the police opened fire early in the morning on the unarmed protesters, some of whom were still sleeping, and deliberately mowed them down as they held up their arms or attempted to flee.

In response, the activists quote eyewitnesses as saying, another group of indigenous people who were farther up the hill seized and killed a number of police officers, apparently in “self-defence.”

National ombudswoman Beatriz Merino reported Sunday night that at least 24 police and 10 civilians had been killed, and that 89 indigenous people had been wounded and 79 arrested. But the figures continue to grow.

“We have killed each other, Peruvians against Peruvians,” lamented indigenous leader Shapion Noningo, the new spokesman for the Peruvian Rainforest Inter-Ethnic Development Association (AIDESEP) – which groups 28 federations of indigenous peoples – said Sunday night.

AIDESEP has led the protests that began two months ago, which have included blockades of traffic along roads and rivers and occupations of oil industry installations in various provinces.

A few hours earlier, President Alán García had said there was “a conspiracy afoot to try to keep us from making use of our natural wealth.” He was referring to the fierce opposition by the country’s native peoples to 10 decrees issued by his government that open up indigenous land to private investment by oil, mining and logging companies and to agribusiness, including biofuel plantations.

The decrees, which were passed by the government under special powers received from Congress to facilitate implementation of Peru’s free trade agreement with the United States, are considered unconstitutional by the indigenous protesters. A legislative committee also recommended last December that they be overturned.

On Thursday, Jun. 4, governing party lawmakers suspended a debate on one of the decrees, the “forestry and wildlife law”, fueling the demonstrators’ anger.

“In whose interest is it for Peru not to use its natural gas; in whose interest is it for Peru not to find more oil; in whose interest is it for Peru not to exploit its minerals more effectively and on a larger-scale? We know whose interests this serves,” said García. “The important thing is to identify the ties between these international networks that are emerging to foment unrest.”

The president blamed the conflict on “international competitors,” but without naming names.

Two neighbouring countries that are major producers of natural gas and oil, Venezuela and Bolivia, are governed by left-wing administrations that have been vociferous critics of “neoliberal” free trade economic policies like those followed by the García administration.

“We will not give in to violence or blackmail,” said the president, who maintained that Peru “is suffering from subversive aggression” fed by opponents who “have taken the side of extreme savagery.”

A large number of the traffic blockades on roads and rivers are in the northern and northeastern provinces of Loreto, San Martín and Amazonas, which have large natural gas reserves.

According to the 1993 census, indigenous people made up one-third of the Peruvian population. But more recent estimates put the proportion at 45 percent, with most of the rest of the population of 28 million being of mixed-race heritage.

In Loreto, indigenous protesters reportedly attempted to occupy installations belonging to the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. The company said it had closed down activity on its 1AB lot, to avoid violent clashes.

Business associations estimate the losses caused by the protests at more than 186 million dollars.

The government is broadcasting a television spot showing images of dead policemen, along with messages like: “This is how extremism is acting against Peru”; “extremists encouraged from abroad want to block progress in Peru”; and “we must unite against crime, to keep the fatherland from backsliding from the progress made.”

Leaders of the indigenous protests say the government is manipulating information and blaming them for incidents that could have been avoided if Congress had repealed the decrees that sparked the first native “uprising” in August 2008, which flared up again in April this year.

“The government is underreporting the number of indigenous people killed and missing. It is insulting us and treating us like criminals, when all we are doing is defending ourselves and our territory, which is humanity’s heritage,” Walter Kategari, a member of the AIDESEP board of directors, told IPS.

Kategari forms part of AIDESEP’s new leadership, which was formed when the group’s top leader, Alberto Pizango, went into hiding after a warrant for his arrest was put out on Saturday. Pizango said he fears for his life.

The leaders of the indigenous movement are demanding that the curfew prohibiting people from leaving their homes in Bagua between 3:00 PM and 6:00 AM be lifted. According to Kategari, the curfew is being used to conceal the bodies of the Indians who were killed.

“Our brothers and sisters in Bagua say the police have been collecting the bodies, putting them in black bags and throwing them in the river from a helicopter,” Kategari told IPS. “The government cannot make our dead disappear.”

There is great insecurity and fear in the jungle, he added. “People are calling us on the telephone, desperate.” He said he is preparing a list of victims based on the names he has been given by people in Bagua, to counteract the official reports.

Gregor MacLennan, programme coordinator for the international organisation Amazon Watch, said “All eyewitness testimonies say that Special Forces opened fire on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators, including from helicopters, killing and wounding dozens in an orchestrated attempt to open the roads. “It seems that the police had come with orders to shoot. This was not a clash, but a coordinated police raid with police firing on protesters from both sides of their blockade,” added the activist, speaking from the town of Bagua. “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 MacLennan, in an Amazon Watch statement.

“Hospital workers in Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande corroborated that the police took bodies of the dead from their premises to an undisclosed location,” he added.

According to MacLennan, shortly before the killings in Bagua, the police chief and mayors met with the indigenous leaders, and the police chief said he had orders to dismantle the roadblock.

Early Friday morning, the activist told Amy Goodman in an interview on the Democracy Now radio programme, an estimated 500 police bore down on the protesters at the roadblock, some of whom were still sleeping, and opened fire.

MacLennan said a local leader told him that demonstrators kneeling down with their hands up were directly shot by the police. After that, he said, the police continued firing as the demonstrators attempted to flee.

With respect to the deaths of the policemen, he said “All the indigenous people I’ve spoken to are very upset about that equally…they say…they’re all Peruvians, and they all have families. It appears that as the police were attacking this huge group of indigenous people…some people came down from the mountains, who were sleeping up there, and jumped on the police and killed some of the police in self-defence, an act that’s understandable, but, as the leaders I’ve spoken to say, not excusable.”

He said the indigenous leaders want a “transparent” investigation and for all of those responsible for the killings to be brought to justice.

Unconstitutional government decrees

AIDESEP spokesman Noningo said “the political system has fomented this confrontation.” He pointed out that a multi-party legislative commission recommended in December that the decrees be repealed.

The congressional constitution committee also said the “forestry and wildlife law”, which according to critics endangers the rainforest that is home to the indigenous groups, is unconstitutional.

On Thursday Jun. 4, the ombudsperson’s office filed a lawsuit against the law, alleging that it is unconstitutional and that it undermines indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural identity, collective ownership of their land, and prior consultation.

Under the Peruvian constitution and International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, indigenous groups must be previously consulted with respect to any investment projects in their territory.

The “forestry and wildlife law”, whose stated aim is to “create the necessary conditions for private sector investment in agriculture,” violates the property rights of indigenous communities, according to the ombudsperson’s office.

But the president of Congress, Javier Velásquez Quesquén, said the legislators will not give in to “blackmail” by indigenous people.

Sociologist Nelson Manrique at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, a private university in Lima, said “the indigenous protesters are being accused of asking for too much because they are demanding compliance with the constitution, when it is the government that is breaking the law by refusing to revoke the decrees.”

The analyst told IPS that the arguments set forth by the authorities are like those of the ruling elites, who “use two stereotypes in their depictions of indigenous people: the manipulated savage who cannot argue anything in legal terms because he is incapable of thinking, or the bloody, irrational savage who is a threat to the country.

“With this discourse, the government feeds into old racist prejudices that have deep roots in Peruvian society: that of the uncivilised, inferior native. And democracy is impossible with a view like this,” said Manrique.

He said the controversial decrees form part of García’s free trade political agenda based on promoting foreign investment.

Manrique supports the indigenous groups’ demand for an independent commission to investigate what happened in Bagua, saying it was hard to believe that police armed with AKM assault rifles simply fell prey to indigenous people armed with bows and arrows and homemade weapons.

Wilfredo Ardito, lawyer for the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos human rights association, told IPS that international bodies should intervene, because “there is a climate of total distrust and fear that evidence of the massacre will be hidden.”

Ardito said that since García took office in July 2006, there have been 84 reports of deaths of protesters or extrajudicial killings by the security forces. “This is a regime that undermines human rights and that is doing nothing to redress its errors,” said the legal expert.

The following report first appeared at:

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1901/1/

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