In spite of having everything in place, the Ministry of Energy and Mines felt obliged yesterday to suspend public audiences to discuss the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Block 56, named Camisea 2, because of peaceful protest by Urubamba indigenous communities and farmers who refused to participate.
The meeting was scheduled by the Minister Clodomiro Sanchez, despite a January 10th visit to his office by an indigenous and campesino delegation who called for the suspension of such meeting until full transparency is given about the causes of the gas spilled that occurred on December 22nd.
In a communiqué distributed yesterday, representatives of the Machiguenga communities of the Lower Urubamba expressed they are not in favor of the “expansion of the Camisea Project given the continuing problems.”
They indicated that “since the beginning, the Camisea consortium has trampled the rights of our people. In the last few months, our communities have reported landslides along the pipeline, but TGP has denied this occurring and pretends to surprise public opinion by affirming that there are no problems.”
Machiguenga communities state that the grave gas spill that occurred on the 22nd of December on kilometer 8.8 of the Camisea pipeline contaminated the Kemariato ravine, tributary of the Urubamba river, and that to date neither the companies nor the government have provided clear responses about the event.
The Pronouncement states: “We have been witness that the gas spill reached the Urubamba river and was significant, given we smelled a strong odor fuel 30 kilometers from the point of the spill, in addition to seeing dead fish and affected game even many days after the spill.”
What is particularly disconcerting is that the company denies having caused contamination and the government lacks interest in addressing the just claims of the village.
The communiqué was signed in the native community of Shivankoreni, site of the public audience, by Walter Kategari, Sub-Chief of the Machiguenga Council of the Urubamba River (COMARU) and the chiefs of the Shivankoreni, Kirigueti and Timpía communities.
[Translated from Spanish original by Amazon Watch]
