A report by Peru’s Office of the People’s Defender accuses the government of failing to protect the basic rights of indigenous communities near the Camisea gas field operated by foreign companies in the country’s Amazon jungle region.
After monitoring the work in Camisea for five years, from 2000 to 2005, the Office of the People’s Defender reported that the Camisea gas project, which was touted as a model of sustainable development, environmental protection and respect for indigenous people, instead poses a serious threat to local indigenous communities.
The report, “The Camisea Project and Its Effects on the Rights of People,” holds both the foreign companies and the Peruvian state responsible for the damages to indigenous residents of the Nahua-Kugapakori reserve in southern Peru.
Most of the Camisea gas field wells exploited under concession by the Transportadora de Gas del Per£ (TGP) consortium are located in the indigenous reserve.
The consortium is made up of the Argentine firms Techint and PlusPetrol, Hunt Oil from Texas, the Algerian state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach, South Korea’s SK Corp. and several other firms.
According to the report, infectious diseases like syphilis, influenza, diarrhea, and respiratory ailments have reached the local indigenous communities – which previously had little or no contact with the outside world, making them extremely vulnerable to epidemics – in Camisea long before the progress and “modern development” promised by President Alejandro Toledo and the companies involved in natural gas production.
The Office of the People’s Defender monitored the work in Camisea for five years, from 2000 to 2005.
At the presentation of the report, People’s Defender (ombudswoman) Beatriz Merino Lucero said public institutions were ineffective in protecting the rights of isolated indigenous people, particularly their right to life, health, property and the environment, when they first come into contact with the outside world.
Referring to the indigenous communities that have been most heavily affected by the Camisea gas project, Merino Lucero urged the government and the companies to undertake “the changes needed to promote respect for the rights of those who have basically suffered in silence.”
The report was released less than 48 hours after E-Tech International, an independent California-based engineering and environmental consultancy, presented the results of an environmental audit to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which helped finance the $1.6 billion Camisea pipeline that carries gas from the Amazon jungle to Peru’s Pacific coast.
According to the E-Tech report, presented to the IDB in Washington on Monday, a large part of the pipeline was built using severely corroded pipes that had been left over from earlier projects in Brazil and Ecuador, and the welding was done by unskilled workers.
As a result, the pipeline experienced four leaks in its first 15 months of operations, and additional ruptures are likely at six points, most of which are located in pristine rainforest, said E-Tech.
When they come into contact with outsiders, the isolated Nahua, Matsiguenga, Nanti and Kugapakori indigenous communities are “particularly vulnerable to respiratory and gastrointestinal infections,” and “their cultural identity is subjected to changes that undermine their self-esteem,” says the report by the Office of the People’s Defender.
The report documents 17 deaths from influenza between 2001 and 2003 in previously uncontacted indigenous communities that had been visited by employees of the gas companies.
Cases of sexually transmitted diseases have also been documented. “Sixteen cases of syphilis were registered in native communities in Camisea and Shivacoreni. The communities blame the cases on the appearance of brothels near the camps of Techint workers,” states the report. Techint was in charge of construction of the pipeline.
“The diseases contracted by these groups due to contact with the company’s workers could be catastrophic,” the Office of the People’s Defender warns.
The document also notes that indigenous children have borne the brunt of the impact of the gas production project. For instance, the health of Nanti indigenous people, and especially children, in Montentoni and Marankeato has been heavily affected by acute diarrhea and respiratory infections.
Isolated indigenous communities in the Amazon jungle have frequently been devastated by diseases when coming into contact with outsiders. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the devastation was brought by rubber tappers.
The Office of the People’s Defender maintains that the companies have not been open and honest about the risks posed by their activities or in assessing the cost of their impact.
The state has also failed to act, “because there is no policy with respect to compensation for uncontacted communities living in voluntary isolation,” says the report, which notes, however, that the gas consortium has earmarked funds to that end.
But the companies have failed to live up to clauses in the contract referring to indigenous communities, says the government office, which reports that it has “compiled evidence of breach of contractual obligations by the companies, that can be partly explained by the state’s institutional weakness.”
“For that reason, mistrust in the state and in companies that exploit natural resources is a common characteristic in Peru,” the report concludes.
The Argentine firm PlusPetrol has set the amount of compensation for communities affected by the consortium’s activities at $10.2 million over 42 years ($244,000 a year or $668 a day).
However, in the view of the Office of the People’s Defender, that total is low and based on questionable calculations.
Further, the compensation payments are only to go to those communities directly located within the areas where the gas is being exploited, not those along the 720-kilometer pipeline.
The report also discusses the effects of the four pipeline leaks on indigenous communities.
It says the gas leaks severely polluted rivers which indigenous people depend on for water and fishing, causing economic and health problems.
