Loreto, Peru – Canadian oil company Talisman Energy’s operations in northern Peru are causing conflict and division in Achuar and Shuar-Wampisa communities and risking lives, according to Salesian missionary priest Father Diego Clavijo and indigenous Achuar leader Peas Peas Ayui. Talisman is drilling exploratory oil wells in Oil Block 64 in a remote area of the Peruvian Amazon near the Ecuador border against the wishes of the majority of the indigenous Achuar peoples who live within the oil block
“We are on the verge of genocide,” said Father Diego, who has worked with the Achuar and the Shuar-Wampisa people downriver from Block 64 for ten years. “The presence of Talisman is generating conflict between those who accept and those who don’t accept the company, and a conflict like this here in the jungle runs the risk of costing many lives.”
In a testimony given over satellite phone from the remote Amazon community of Kuyuntsa, Father Diego, together with Father Luis Bola, who has lived in the region for 50 years, expressed their concern that Talisman’s strategy of divide and conquer and underhand methods of convincing communities to accept the company is causing a real risk of conflict. They recounted events surrounding a peaceful protest against Talisman by the Shuar-Wampisa in September where a group of Achuar who side with Talisman confronted the protestors with arms, almost resulting in bloodshed.
The majority of Achuar are opposed to Talisman’s presence in the region. Earlier this month Achuar leader Peas Peas Ayui traveled to Canada to confront Talisman’s CEO John Manzoni over the company’s ongoing operations against the wishes of the Achuar people. Peas Ayui is President of the National Achuar Federation of Peru (FENAP) that represents 42 Achuar communities and the majority of Achuar people living within Block 64.
“Talisman has convinced a handful of Achuar communities, eight villages, to allow them to drill, but they do not have the consent of the majority of Achuar people,” said Peas Ayui. “Their operations threaten a critical hunting ground in the heart of Achuar territory, and they are dividing families through their insistence on trying to convince people.”
The Peruvian government first created Block 64 in 1995 during the Fujimori dictatorship without consultation or consent from the Achuar people who live there. Successive oil companies were unable to start drilling due to the united resistance of the Achuar people.
Talisman first acquired an interest in Block 64 with Occidental Petroleum in 2004, and Talisman became operator in 2007. During Oxy and Talisman’s presence in the region the Achuar organization FENAP was divided and two new small organizations were created, FASAM and Nuevo OSHAM, representing five communities in the North West corner of Block 64, and three communities just outside the block on the tributaries of the Morona River. FENAP continues to represent 42 communities and the majority of communities inside Block 64 – 25 communities – and has never signed any agreement with Talisman.
“Oil companies like Talisman need to learn that being a responsible company means more than good policies and community investment projects,” said Gregor MacLennan, Peru Program Coordinator at Amazon Watch. “It means making decisions and changing behavior to respect human rights, and it means respecting the Achuar and leaving their territory.”
