Bagua, Peru – Saturday June 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the violent clashes in the Amazonian town of Bagua and Oil Pumping Station 6, which left 34 dead and dozens injured when the Peruvian government sent armed police to clear a road blocked by peaceful indigenous protesters. The protests were calling for the repeal of new laws that rolled back indigenous land rights and opened up the last vestiges of their territories in the Peruvian Amazon to destructive oil and gas drilling.
After a year of dialogues and multiple investigations with conflicting conclusions, there is little clarity about how peaceful protests turned into a blood bath while little progress been made to address the underlying causes of the conflict.
To mark the Bagua anniversary, indigenous leaders from across the Amazon region, including AIDESEP President Segundo Alberto Pizango, who recently returned from exile in Nicaragua, are gathering in Bagua June 4-5 to hold vigil for the fallen. They plan on making a pilgrimage to the site of the clashes at the curva del Diablo or “Devil’s Curve,” and are organizing a forum to discuss the government’s actions around the criminalization of non-violent protest in Peru.
Last week, a coalition of human rights, environmental and labor groups sent a letter to President Obama given his June 1st meeting with Garcia, urging him to question Peru’s President on his administration’s pattern of violating the rights of indigenous peoples. The letter pointed to the government’s failure to address the causes of conflicts that led to the bloodshed in Bagua as well as its pursuit of baseless legal charges against nine indigenous leaders, among them Alberto Pizango, the President of AIDESEP. Pizango who returned to Peru last week following almost a year in exile in Nicaragua, was released within 24 hours of his immediate detention, although the serious charges against him have not been dropped.
The tremendous international pressure and condemnation that followed the Bagua tragedy led the Garcia government to establish thematic dialogues with indigenous federations. The Peruvian Congress eventually repealed two of nine problematic decrees that were subject of protests.
“The ongoing pursuit of politically motivated legal charges against indigenous leaders is a concrete example of how the Garcia administration has not been engaging in good faith reconciliation efforts,” said Gregor MacLennan, Peru Program Coordinator for Amazon Watch. “The government continues to fuel tensions by turning over large areas of indigenous lands to oil companies without their consent.”
The Garcia administration recently came under fire for opening dozens more new oil and gas concessions on indigenous lands in violation of indigenous peoples legal rights and the recommendations of the UN International Labor Organization. In February 2010, the International Labor Organization (ILO) recommended that the Peruvian government “suspend the exploration and exploitation of natural resources which are affecting [indigenous peoples]” until the government has developed consultation and participation mechanisms in compliance with the ILO convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples.
On May 19th, the Peruvian Congress passed a new law to require consultation with affected indigenous communities before development projects on their lands can go forward. The Peruvian national indigenous federation AIDESEP has acknowledged that – while the new law does not go far enough given it does not apply to the recently awarded concessions – it is a necessary step forward. They are urging President Garcia to sign it into law. In line with the ILO recommendations, AIDESEP is demanding that new extractive concessions including those recently auctioned be suspended until the law can go into effect and until affected indigenous communities can be properly consulted.
Gregor MacLennan, the Peru Program Coordinator for Amazon Watch, will be in Bagua today and tomorrow for the memorial events and will be available for interviews throughout the day.
For more information and to access the online press kit, which includes high resolution photographs, video footage, and important background documents, please visit https://amazonwatch.org/bagua-anniversary-press-kit.php.
The site will be updated continually throughout the day with photographs, interviews with indigenous leaders, and video footage of the memorial events in Bagua today.
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