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Amazon Watch
Peru: 25 dead as National Police attack Amazon road blockade
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Peruvian President Alan Garcia with George Bush in Washington
December 14, 2007. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch) |
(caution: graphic photos below)
Bagua, Peru (June 8, 2009) – In the aftermath of Friday's bloody raid on a peaceful indigenous road blockade near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon, numerous eyewitnesses are reporting that the Special Forces of the Peruvian Police have been disposing of the bodies of indigenous protesters who were killed.
"Today I spoke to many eyewitnesses in Bagua reporting that they saw police throw the bodies of the dead into the Marañon River from a helicopter in an apparent attempt by the Government to underreport the number of indigenous people killed by police," said Gregor MacLennan, spokesperson for Amazon Watch.
"Hospital workers in Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande corroborated that the police took bodies of the dead from their premises to an undisclosed location. I spoke to several people who reported that there are bodies lying at the bottom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilometers from the incident site. When the Church and local leaders went to investigate, the police stopped them from approaching the area," reported MacLennan.
Police and government officials have been consistently underreporting the number of indigenous people killed by police gunfire. Indigenous organizations place the number of protesters killed at least at 40, while Government officials claiming that only a handful of indigenous people were killed. Also the Garcia Government claims that 22 police officers were killed and several still missing.
"Witnesses say that it was the police who opened fire last Friday on the protesters from helicopters," MacLennan said. "Now the government appears to be destroying the bodies of slain protesters and giving very low estimates of the casualty. Given that the demonstrators were unarmed or carrying only wooden spears and the police were firing automatic weapons, the actual number of indigenous people killed is likely to be much higher."
"Another eyewitness reported seeing the bodies of five indigenous people that had been burned beyond identification at the morgue. I have listened to testimony of people in tears talking about witnessing the police burning bodies," continued MacLennan.
At least 150 people from the demonstration on Friday are still being detained. Eye-witness reports also confirm that police forcibly removed some of the wounded indigenous protesters from hospitals, taking them to unknown destinations. Their families expressed concern for their well being while in detention. There are many people still reported missing and access to medical attention in the region is horribly inadequate.
The Organizing Committee for the Indigenous Peoples of Alto Amazonas Province issued this statement:
"It is appalling that political powers have acted in such a cruel and inhuman manner against Amazonian Peoples, failing to recognize the fundamental rights and protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution. We express deep grief over the death of our indigenous brothers, of civilians and the officers of the National Police."
The government expanded the State of Emergency and established a curfew on all traffic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indigenous and international human rights organizations are worried about plans of another National Police raid on a blockade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tarapoto where thousands are blocking a road.
President Alan Garcia is being widely criticized for fomenting a climate of fear mongering against indigenous peoples by drawing parallels to the brutal Shinning Path guerrilla movement of the 1980s and early 1990s, and by vaguely referring to external and anti-democratic threats to the country.
The Amazonian indigenous peoples' mobilizations have been peaceful, locally coordinated, and extremely well organized for nearly two months. Yet Garcia insists on calling them terrorist acts and anti-democratic. Garcia has even gone so far as to describe the indigenous mobilizations as "savage and barbaric." Garcia has made his discrimination explicit, saying directly that the Amazonian indigenous people are not first-class citizens.
"These people don't have crowns," Garcia said about the protesters. "These people aren't first-class citizens who can say – 400,000 natives to 28 million Peruvians – 'You don't have the right to be here.' No way. That is a huge error."
Ironically, Peru was the country that introduced the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the floor of the General Assembly when it was adopted in September 2007.
A coalition of indigenous and human rights organizations will protest in front of the Peruvian Embassy in Washington D.C. on Monday, June 8 at 12:30 pm.
Indigenous peoples have vowed to continue protests until the Peruvian Congress revokes the "free trade" decrees issued by President Garcia under special powers granted by Congress in the context of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
Among the outpouring of statements condemning the violence in Peru were those from Peru's Ombudsman's office, the chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a coalition of 45 international human rights organizations, Indigenous organizations from throughout the Americas, and the Conference of Bishops of Peru. Also famous personalities including Q'orianka Kilcher, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Hannah and Bianca Jagger called on the Peruvian Government to cease the violence and seek peaceful resolution to the conflict.
AIDESEP, the national indigenous organization of Peru has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11th.
Amazon Watch is continually updating photographs, audio testimony, and video footage from Bagua on Amazon Watch. www.amazonwatch.org.
Note: Photo of Alan Garcia and Amazon Watch photos added by Axis of Logic.
(3) WW4 Reports and updates on the attacks
Peru: Amazon uprising spreads
06/07/2009
Nine more police officers were reportedly killed in a standoff with indigenous protesters in Peru's Amazonas region June 6, bringing the total dead since the previous day's police attack on a road blockade in Bagua municipality to an estimated 60. Authorities say 22 officers of the Peruvian National Police (PNP) have been killed—seven with spears. Indigenous leaders say at least 40 of their people have been killed, including three children. The government says it can confirm only nine civilian deaths. Thousands of indigenous protesters armed with spears are blockading roads throughout the region.
A 3 PM-to-dawn curfew has been imposed on Bagua, and the town has been occupied by the PNP's elite National Directorate of Special Operations (DINOES). Authorities report 72 arrests. Officials declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout Amazonas region, as well as three adjoining provinces of Cajamaraca and Loreto regions.
The facts remain disputed of the early-morning June 5 police attack on a protest roadblock that sparked the violence. Police say protesters seized some three dozen officers during the confrontation. Of these, 25 were reportedly rescued the following day when police stormed Station No. 6 of the Oleoducto Nor-Peruano in Imacita, which had been seized by protesters. The PNP said nine hostages were taken some two kilometers from the station and killed while an army general was negotiating with the protesters.
Among at least 45 people being treated at the main hospital in Bagua is local indigenous leader Santiago Manuín, who received eight bullet wounds in the initial attack June 5, according to anonymous medical sources.
Peru's Defender of the People (public ombudsman), Beatriz Merino, toured hospitals and clinics in Utcubamba province, of which Bagua is the seat, and complained of a shortage of "blood, analgesics, antibiotics, trauma equipment and doctors."
Arrest order issued for AIDESEP leader
Also June 5, judicial authorities issued an arrest order for Alberto Pizango, president of the Peruvian Amazon indigenous alliance AIDESEP, on sedition charges for allegedly inciting the violence. Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillos asserted that Pizango had fled, likely to Bolivia. After the initial roadblock attack, Pizango issued a statement accusing President Alan García's government of "genocide."
AIDESEP issued a new statement as the arrest order was announced, calling for formation of a special "Multi-sectoral Commission" to investigate the matter, with participation from all parties in Peru's congress, the Defender of the People, and the Organization of American States (OAS).
García invokes Shining Path, Bolivia
President Alan García, responding to the crisis, said Peru had "suffered a subversive aggression against democracy and against the National Police. We should respond with serenity and firmness." The president compared the "savage and barbaric methods" used to kill police "who had surrendered and been disarmed" with those of the Shining Path guerillas.
"There is a conspiracy aimed at stopping us from using our natural resources for the good, growth and quality of life of our people," García said June 7, in comment strongly implying a Bolivian hand in the unrest. "You have to ask yourself: Who stands to benefit from Peru not being able to use its gas? Who stands to benefit from Peru not finding any more oil? We know who. The important thing is to establish the ties in these international networks which have emerged to foment unrest."
Bolivian Justice Minister Celima Torrico weighed in, calling the roadblock attack a "bloody massacre," and characterizing García's indifference to indigenous demands as shameful (reprochable). Peru's ambassador to Bolivia, Fernando Rojas, protested the comments as "intervention in internal Peruvian issues."
Lines drawn on Amazon resources
The pending package of laws at issue in the protests would open communal rainforest lands and resources to oil drilling, logging and mining without consultation with indigenous inhabitants. AIDESEP charges the laws would violate Peru's constitution as well as international law.
Contract blocks for oil and gas exploration cover approximately 72% of Peru's rainforest, according to a study published last year by Duke University in North Carolina. While Peru's growth rate has led Latin America in recent years, García's critics say little wealth has trickled down in a country where some half the population is indigenous and over 40% live in poverty.
AIDESEP says the planned thrust of oil development would affect at least 30,000 indigenous inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon Indians across six regions (the country's basic territorial devision, formerly known s departments). The state company Petroperu stopped pumping oil through its northern pipeline in response to the protests on April 26. García declared a state of emergency on May 9, suspending some constitutional rights in four rainforest regions including Amazonas. But Roman Catholic bishops in the Peruvian Amazon issued a statement calling the indigenous complaints legitimate.
The government declared June 7 a national day of mourning for the slain police officers. (AP, Reuters, LAT, RPP, RPP, Peru, 24 Horas Libre, Peru, June 7; RPP, June 6; Erbol, Bolivia, June 5)
WW4 Update
In the early morning hours of June 5, Peruvian national police forces staged a violent raid on a group of indigenous people at a peaceful blockade on a road outside of Bagua, in a remote area of Amazonas region. Several thousand Awajun and Wambis indigenous people were forcibly dispersed by tear gas and bullets, leaving at least 25 dead and many more injured.
Police began to approach the protesters as they were sleeping along the Fernando Belaúnde Terry road. Protesters refused to move from the roadblock as helicopters dropped tear-gas bombs from above. Eye-witnesses report that police attacked from both sides, firing into the crowd as people fled into the hills. As the unarmed protesters were killed and injured, some wrestled rifles away from the police and fought back, resulting in deaths of seven police officers.
The National Police claimed that the protesters had firearms, necessitating the use of bullets for dispersal. This claim is refuted by dozens of local witnesses, including journalists. who reported that the protesters had been entirely peaceful and only bore traditional spears. "The lives of the indigenous is worth nothing for the government," said Alberto Pizango, leader of the Peru's Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP.
Indigenous peoples have vowed to continue protests until Peru's congress revokes the "free trade" decrees issued by President Alan García under special powers granted by Congress in the context of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. In the past two weeks, the constitutional committee of Congress has ruled that legislative decrees 994 and 1090 were unconstitutional. The Congress was scheduled to debate the revocation of decree 1090 again this week; however, Garcia's congressional bloc once again prevented the debate. AIDESEP has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11. (Amazon Watch, Indian Country Today, June 5)
World War 4 Report
WW4 Update
Indigenous protesters June 1 seized two valves on the pipeline that moves natural gas from Peru's Camisea field in the Amazon rainforest to the Pacific coast—the lastest escalation in a campaign across the region to force the government to resist new laws that would ease corporate access to natural resources on indigenous lands. Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP), a consortium of energy firms that includes Argentina's Pluspetrol and US-based Hunt Oil, said about 50 protesters took control of the valves over the weekend. The operators said flows have not yet been affected. (Reuters, June 1)
The head of the Peruvian National Police (PNP) for the Cusco region, Gen. Octavio Founmet, announced that his forces are preparing to forcibly remove the protesters. The PNP's National Directorate of Special Operations (DINOES), backed up by army troops, is being mobilized to the scene, in Cusco's lowland Echarate district. Oswaldo Tunqui, president of the Machiguenga Council of the Río Urubamba (COMARU), said the protesters are prepared to resist "to the death." (La Republica, Lima, Coordinadora Nacional de Radio-CNR, Peru, June 2)
World War 4 Report
CALL TO ACTION BY QUIXOTE
URGENT ACTION NEEDED! Police Massacre of Indigenous Protesters
in the Peruvian Amazon Linked to US-Peru FTA
Please write to President Obama and tell him we are outraged at the massacre of peaceful, indigenous protestors in Peru as a result of the FTA.
At dawn on Friday, June 5th, 600 Peruvian police in helicopters and on foot opened fire on thousands of peaceful indigenous protestors blocking a road near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon. Conservative estimates indicate that 60 indigenous and police have been killed. Police are accused of burning indigenous bodies, throwing them in the river and removing wounded from the hospital to hide the real number of casualties.
For two months, over 30,000 indigenous have sustained nonviolent protests along the roads and waterways of the Amazon. These protests are in response to a series of Presidential decrees issued under the U.S.-Peru FTA implementation law that violate indigenous rights and open the way for an unprecedented expansion of new transnational petroleum, mining, logging and mono-cropping in the Amazon rainforest.
Quixote Center Co-Director Jennifer Atlee just returned from the IV Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples in Puno, Peru where representatives of Peru’s Amazonian Indigenous were present. Leaders called for international solidarity to safeguard the Amazon, 72% of which is already concessioned for petroleum exploration and extraction. The Peruvian Amazon plays a critical role in safeguarding global climate – their struggle is our struggle!
This week, Peruvian officials will meet with the USTR in Washington for discussions on FTA implementation. We need to send a strong message to our government that we stand with the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon and reject the killing and destruction which current U.S. free trade policies promote.
Quixote Center
Compiled, photos and notes added throughout by Axis of Logic |
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