Archive for the ‘Peru’ Category
Peru Repeals Two Land Laws at the the Core of Deadly Attacks on Indigenous
8:15 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Peru|Politics · Comments Off
19 Jun 2009
Yesterday Peru’s Congress overturned two laws at the heart of the violence between the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Peruvian police.
The vote to throw out legislative decrees 1090 and 1064 could delay foreign investment in mining and energy projects in the rain forest, and may prompt Peru and the United States to reevaluate clauses of their free-trade pact. [ID:nN06294730]
President Alan Garcia issued a series of decrees last year under powers Congress gave him to implement the U.S. trade deal and create a framework to regulate investment in the Amazon.
But after deadly violence, he backtracked and asked Congress to overturn two of the most divisive laws, although others remain in effect.
I haven’t sat down to read a comprehensive list of all the laws that impact this region and the people living there, pero I am more interesting in seeing which laws remain in effect and how those will be used. I came across this piece from Foreign Policy in Focus that puts the situation in a more global Latin American context as well as linking the laws in Peru to the imperialist idea that free trade agreements are “gifts” from the first world to the third world. A real interesting read.
Via / Inka Kola News
A great interview from Democracy Now! about the incidents in Peru and the U.S. role in shaping the violence:
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia defended the police actions and lashed out against the deaths of the policemen. He blamed, quote, “foreign forces” for the violence and spoke of a, quote, “conspiracy” to stop his government from exploiting natural resources.
PRESIDENT ALAN GARCIA: [translated] These death mongers would like the world to denounce hundreds of natives being killed. But what has been found are dozens of police with their throats slit. That’s the truth when one talks of the facts of these deaths. And you might ask why they are our police deaths, if they are the one who are armed. The explanation for all of this, you come to understand, is a will for dialogue on the part of these humble policemen, who had no desire to fire their weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: Peruvian President Alan Garcia defending the police actions against indigenous protesters last week. Over the weekend, Garcia, a free trade advocate, said 40,000 natives did not have the right to tell 28 million Peruvians not to come to their lands. Anyone who did so, he warned, would lead Peru into, quote, “irrationality and a backwards primitive state.”
Since April, indigenous groups have opposed new laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest by blocking roads, waterways and oil pipelines. President Garcia’s government passed these laws under “fast track” authority he had received from the Peruvian congress to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.
Friday’s clashes followed a governmental decision to reject congressional attempts to overturn some of the laws.
More reports from Peru
11 Jun 2009
I was told that the indigenous people had “tortured, gutted, and violently killed the police men they had captured the day before, slicing their necks and in at least one case cutting their eyeballs out.” You can also read about this in some of the Peruvian papers, such as El Comercio.
These accounts were not mentioned neither in the NY Times article, nor the BBC one, and so its validity is in question. (Of course the framing for both articles is centered on the police and not on the protestors themselves, also victims of violence) It seems that this piece of the story is either made up or being exagerrated to readers into a general sentiment heading in the direction of “Those Savages Must Be Stopped!” In other words, the “savagery” is described as being perpetrated by the indigenous people, when in actuality, it is the Peruvian military that is committing the “savagery,”, with their guns, tear gas, and tanks; backed by big oil and logging companies, and by the “free-trade-loving” president Alan Garcia himself. Not to mention how “savagely” the Amazon land is being destroyed day by day by the oil profiteers, nor how these companies are destroying the bio diversity of one of the most important regions for planet earth.
This type of fear mongering is to be expected when you are the president of a country that just signed Free Trade Agreements with China and Canada. He even went as far to call the resisters “terrorits.” Ben Powless, a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario and blogger with Rabble.ca, writes:
“Garcia declared the Indigenous elements to be standing in the way of progress, in the path of national development, wrenches in the gears of modernity, and part of an international conspiracy to keep Peru down. In a troubling statement on the resemblance of the Indigenous protestors to the infamous Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) armed insurrection, Garcia seemed to imply the Natives were a band of terrorists as he stood in front of hundreds of military officers in a nationally televised speech. He continued to decry the Indian barbarity and savagery, and called for all police and military to stand against savagery.”
Peruvian Minister of Women Resigns
7:29 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Controversia|Peru|Politics|Women · Comments Off
10 Jun 2009
The Peruvian Minister for Women,
Carmen Vilodoso (pictured), resigned yesterday for unspecified “political reasons” which everyone is taking to mean the violence against Indigenous communities.
The resignation happened after Peruvian Prime Minister Yehude Simon and Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas made a presentation before the Peruvian Congressional Defense Commission that blamed the violence on Peruvian Jungle Inter-ethnic Association (AIDESEP) leaders.
Via / Prensa Latina
The role of U.S. in Peru clashes
5:41 pm By la Macha · economy|Environment|Peru|Violence · 3 Comments
9 Jun 2009
Being in the U.S. affords me certain privileges, namely allowing me to be unaware of how laws of the U.S. affect citizens in other countries. I knew on some level what the fighting in Peru was about (corporate versus indigenous nations versus Peruvian government), but of course, the role of the U.S. is so hidden from people in the U.S., we don’t see it until we are told.
From msnbc.com:
The strikers’ demands are the same as those of the protesting Indians: that Congress revoke laws to promote oil and natural gas extraction, logging and large-scale agriculture on traditional Indian lands. Garcia decreed the laws to comply with a new U.S.-Peru free trade agreement.
“We don’t get anything from this huge exploitation, which also poisons us. We’ve never seen any development and my community lives in poverty,” local Aguaruna leader Mateo Inti told The Associated Press in Bagua, the scene of Friday’s violence.
They also want Garcia and his Cabinet prosecuted for the bloodshed, which they say also killed 30 Indians. The government puts the civilian death toll at nine — outraging the Indian leaders who accuse police of burning and hiding more bodies.
“We’re not taking even one step back. We haven’t lost this fight,” protest leader Daysi Zapata said.
In a two page article, there is one sentence that details what all this has to do with the U.S.–or in other words, how U.S. style capitalism is killing people a world away from the U.S.–or, in other words, how people in other countries learn to “hate” the U.S.
Or, more bluntly, people don’t hate the U.S. because we’re ‘free’ and because of our ‘rights,’ they hate us because we create economic structures that destroy and violate their land, communities and peoples–all in the name of protecting and defending our ‘rights.’
On a tangent, this is what makes me think that maybe “ethnic media” has some legitimacy. I cringe at the name “ethnic media,” but if it is the only media that is attempting to do something as simple as explain what U.S. trade agreements are doing to the world–then maybe I can get over the name a lot faster than I thought I could.
Corporate media should be ashamed of itself.
Interview With Peruvian Quechua Congresswoman Hilaria Supa
7:25 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Blogs|Peru|Politics · Comments Off
9 Jun 2009Last month I wrote about how Peruvian Quechua Congresswoman Hilaria Supa was under attack in Peru, with her Indigenous identity being attacked as a deficiency in her work.
Carlos in DC, who generally dislikes me and VivirLatino for claiming Latino identity, had the opportunity to interview Supa when she was here in NYC speaking at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In the three part interview Carlos asks Supa about Indigenous identity, the value of the Coca leaf, and the attacks on her from the mainstream Peruvian press.
You can see the entire three part interview here.
Updates on Protests in Peru
11:29 am By la Macha · Environment|Peru · Comments Off
8 Jun 2009
As I watch this unfold, I have to ask again, where are all the environmentalist do-gooders that buy amazon rainforest up so that native peoples can’t “destroy” it?
“The police were shooting to kill, but that’s not all, because they hid the dead,” one man told the BBC.
“They took them to the ravine and threw them from the helicopter in plastic bags. There are also dead on the river banks. Up there beyond the hill, there are more, as if it were a common grave.”
President Garcia has roundly rejected the allegations. He accused the protesters of disarming, tying up and slitting the throats of the officers taken hostage.
President Garcia has blamed foreign forces – widely understood to mean Bolivia and Venezuela – for inciting the unrest, saying on Sunday they did not want Peru to use its “natural resources for the good, growth and quality of life of our people”.
Does fighting against corporate environmental destruction not feel as good as fighting against native peoples making a living?
Government violence against Indigenous populations in Peru
1:11 pm By la Macha · military|military interventions|Peru|Violence · 1 Comment
6 Jun 2009From Reuters comes the news of violence against indigenous populations in Peru that are protesting against the commercialization of their native lands.
The death toll rose on Saturday after Peruvian security forces battled native Indians in clashes that highlighted opposition to exploration in the Amazon and could threaten Peru’s investor-friendly government.
Up to 42 people have been killed in the escalating protests over mining and oil development in the region, which have interrupted food and fuel supplies and represent the worst violence of President Alan Garcia’s current government.
Thousands of Indians with wooden spears continued to block remote Amazon highways, vowing to keep protesting if police did not halt efforts to break up their demonstrations.
Makes me wonder where all the do-gooder Westerners are that buy acres of land to stop *indigenous* peoples from developing the land? Do those same people not care when it’s corporations looking to develop that land?
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.
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 ActionYou can email critical people in the Peruvian government through this page, provided by Amazon Watch.
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 Forcewww.rootforce.org
Vargas Llosa Detained in Venezuela
4:19 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bolivia|Controversia|Latin America|literature|Peru|Politics|society|Venezuela · Comments Off
28 May 2009Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa didn’t have such a good time today at Caracas International Airport, Maiquetia, upon arriving to Venezuela from Colombia. Accompanied by his wife for a conference, Vargas Llosa says he was detained for an hour and a half by police who allegedly held him because a “as a foreigner he didn’t have the right to make political statements” in Venezuela. Spain’s Estrella Digital reports:
“They said that very politely and I responded that being in the land of (…) they shouldn’t try to hinder free thinking,” said Vargas Llosa, in the middle of a press mob that surrounded him upon leaving the airport. Álvaro Vargas Llosa, son of the writer, was also arrested for several hour by airport authorities on Monday, when he arrived in Venezuela to participate in the same conference, along with intellectuals from various countries.
Vargas Llosa’s statements to press can be seen in the video above (in Spanish). Estrella Digital also reports that conference organizers said that police would accompany he and his wife to their hotel “so he wouldn’t make statements to press” and that he had already been warned about making political statements.
What’s unclear to me is what political statement he could have made getting off of a plane? It seems like if you were going to do something messed up like detain someone for speaking their mind, you’d do it after they had already done so, not before. Apparently Bolivian ex-president Jorge Quiroga also got the same warning, but wasn’t detained. But actually is already making statements, particularly saying that Evo Morales is merely a pawn of Hugo Chavez.
Via / Estrella Digital
Peruvians Can Say “Stop! In the Name of the Law!”
4:39 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · crime|Latin America|Peru|society · Comments Off
15 May 2009
Citizen’s arrests always have sounded pretty silly to me and I wonder if anyone really does them the way they are done in movies: “This is a citizen’s arrest, sir, put your hands behind your back…” Well in Peru, authorities apparently believe that they will be affective in fighting growing street crime, and are making citizen’s arrest part of their official policy. Spain’s 20 Minutos reports:
Starting July 1st, any Peruvian will be able to arrest a criminal, as long as [the criminal] is found carrying a “flagrant crime” and as long as the citizen immediately turns him in to the police, according to a new law approved Thursday in the Peruvian congress.“Flagrant crime” is defined by the new law as: “When the criminal act is current the perpetrator is discovered, chased and captured immediately.”
According to Living in Peru, citizen’s arrests have been effective in hundreds of cases and “have taken place without any reports of abuse.”
I wonder if this could apply to politicians, too?
Via / 20 Minutos
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