Lima, April 16, 2009 – Thousands of indigenous people are blockading roads and river traffic throughout the Amazon in peaceful protests over the Peruvian government’s aggressive efforts to roll back indigenous land rights and allow water privatization. Indigenous peoples are demanding the repeal of a series of new laws imposed by the Garcia Administration as part of Peru’s Free Trade Agreement with the USA.
Hundreds of indigenous communities are currently participating in the mobilizations against the decrees which they say are creating a rush of private investments in natural resource extraction on their lands and stripping away their rights to their traditionally owned ancestral territory. Peaceful demonstrations shut down fluvial traffic along the Napo and Corrientes Rivers, temporarily shut down Pluspetrol’s oil operations, closed down roads in the Cusco and Madre de Dios departments and interrupted train service to Machu Picchu.
Peruvian Prime Minister Yehude Simon has finally agreed to meet with indigenous representatives next Monday. The government seemed somewhat surprised by the scale of the protests, involving all major indigenous organizations of the Peruvian Amazon whose numbers have been growing despite intimidation tactics used by the police and military.
“We are opposed to a development model that destroys the rainforest for profit of a few individuals and companies. We seek development in harmony with the environment, where all indigenous peoples can participate and benefit,” says Alberto Pizango Chota, President of the national indigenous organization AIDESEP.
Many indigenous and environmental organizations are worried that new legislation in Peru, fast-tracked for the Free Trade Agreement with the USA, strips away community land rights, opens up the rainforest for outside private investment and takes advantage of the hundreds of indigenous communities in Peru whose land titles have not yet been formalized by the Peruvian government.
“This amounts to government backed land-grab”, said Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch. “Peru is basically becoming a ‘corpocracy’ with large corporations that possess close political ties to the government chomping at the bit to get a slice of the pie.”
Earlier in the week, the Peruvian authorities called out troops to confront protesters in what organizers saw as an act of provocation.
“For the third time this week we are calling on the Prime Minister to set aside hostile intentions and recognize that acts of provocation are not the solution to problems in the Amazon,” said Alberto Pizango Chota. He added that government inaction relating to indigenous rights had led to the protest and that promises made by Javier Velasquez, the President of the Peruvian Congress in August to repeal these decrees had amounted to nothing.
Roger Najar, the President of the Congressional Commission of Andean and Amazonian Peoples, agreed: “There’s been no political resolve in either Congress or the Executive to deal with this issue.”
AIDESEP is calling for the repeal of six presidential decrees that violate indigenous rights. The organization is also concerned about plans to privatize water resources on indigenous lands, and the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations that are one of the biggest contemporary threats to the rainforest. It has issued a platform demanding the restoration of territorial rights; the recognition and titling of indigenous communal lands; the creation of reserves to protect the rainforest and uncontacted populations; and the suspension of all oil, gas, mining, tourist and logging concessions within indigenous territories.
“This is not only about indigenous rights but also the basic human right to live in peace”, said Pizango Chota, “We’re not seeking confrontation, but to simply be allowed to protect our environment, our homes and our lives.”
“We hope the Garcia administration engages in meaningful dialogue on the very legitimate environmental and human rights concerns voiced by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and refrains from using violence to resolve the current conflict.”
