Cover-up claim after Peru clashes

[IndianaGreen]

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 00:51 GMT, Wednesday, 10 June 2009 01:51 UK

Cover-up claim after Peru clashes

Human rights lawyers have accused Peru's government of a cover-up, after clashes between police and indigenous protesters killed at least 50 people.

The lawyers say hundreds more may be missing, amid rumours that the police have hidden bodies. But they say rights groups cannot get in to investigate.

The government denies the claims and says police were the victims.

For two months Amazonians have rallied against laws which they say will open their lands to oil and gas drilling.

The government of President Alan Garcia - a hate figure for the protesters - insists it has guaranteed millions of acres for native people.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua has granted political asylum to indigenous leader Alberto Pizango.

He sought refuge in the country's embassy in Lima after an arrest warrant was issued on charges of sedition, conspiracy and rebellion.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8092453.stm

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The US-educated neoliberal Peruvian President Alan Garcia is turning out to be another General Pinochet.

Earlier related threads regarding the situation in Peru:

Peru Indian leader flees to Nicaraguan embassy
Topic started by struggle4progress on Jun-08-09 11:32 PM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3913942

Eyewitness Reports Accuse Peruvian Police of Disposing the Bodies of Dead Indigenous Protesters
Topic started by Judi Lynn on Jun-08-09 12:37 PM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3912997

[paparush]

1. Sad. I spent 3 weeks in Peru in 2007 and saw several large, peaceful, protests

by indigenous peoples. (Cusco)

[L. Coyote]

2. I spent years in Peru, helped free chatteled indigeous slaves and create

Native land reserves in the Amazon region.

That was in the 60s/70s, when a liberal military junta was in charge (our chain of command).
Rule was by decree, so it was very easy to make changes by just making decisions.
What we accomplished to protect Native Indian tribes in the jungle is now threatened
by decrees created to assist foreign corporations and capitalists exploit oil reserves.

The current conflict is due to US free trade agreements, pushed by the Bush Junta.

MORE:

MUST SEE Video: Peruvian Government Massacres Indian Protesters
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5811137

[L. Coyote]

3. Peruvian massacre aimed at opening Amazon to transnationals

Peruvian massacre aimed at opening Amazon to transnationals
By Luis Arce - 8 June 2009 - http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/peru-j08.shtml


A massacre carried out by heavily armed Peruvian security forces against protesting Amazon Indians left dozens dead, as the government of President Alan Garcia attempts to open up the region to exploitation by the transnational corporations.

....

Leaders of indigenous groups have put the number of civilians killed at over 40, while 23 members of the Peruvian security forces have been reported killed.

.........

The roadblock was part of a 56-day protest involving tens of thousands of indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon jungle territory (about half of the Peruvian land mass). The action was part of a struggle waged by the people who live in the region to overturn new laws designed to open up communal lands for oil exploration, logging, mining and large-scale farming.

European, American and Brazilian companies are bidding tens of billions of dollars for rights to drill for oil, construct a hydroelectric plant and exploit the vast mineral and timber resources of the Amazon jungle.

..........



Among the dead were leaders of the Awajun indigenous community, Felipe Sabio and Mateo Inti. Initially, the well-known leader of the Aguarunas, Santiago Manuin Valera, who had received the Spanish Reina Sofia prize for his defense of nature and human rights, was also reported killed, sparking renewed anger among the local population. It was later reported, however, that Manuin Valera had survived surgery after being shot at least eight times, but remained in critical condition.

Zebelio Kayap, president of the Frontier Communities of the Cenepa Organization (Odecofroc in Spanish), told La Republica, “Some of the natives’ bodies may have been burned by the police and thrown into the Marañón River.” Eyewitnesses reported seeing bodies placed in black plastic bags, loaded into helicopters and dumped in the river in an effort to cover up the scale of the massacre.

The indigenous people began their protest in early April. They claim their ancestral rights to the jungle were not considered in the proposed deals with major capitalist interests and that the government did not consult them. In his typical arrogance, President Garcia responded by saying that he did not have to consult anyone because, according to the Constitution, the state owns all the mineral and hydrocarbon wealth of Peru.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Garcia has committed genocide in order to enrich himself and the transnationals

Garcia should be at The Hague facing justice.

[struggle4progress]

4. Peru: Hundreds shelter in church after clashes with police over destruction of Amazon

By: Dan Bergin
Posted: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 12:03 am

Up to a thousand indigenous people, including women and children, have taken refuge in a Catholic church in the Bagua Grande area, 1,400km north of the Peruvian capital Lima, after violent clashes with security forces left more than 50 dead, and 150 wounded on Thursday and Friday. There were 70 arrests. The BBC report that new arrivals are being cheered by crowds of local people outside, many of whom are donating food and clothing ...

CAFOD partner Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos, who is president of the Peruvian Bishops Conference, said: "This was a disaster waiting to happen. The indigenous peoples have been forgotten. We must listen to them. I also think we need to be aware of the worldview of these peoples. We are forgetting that. The indigenous, the natives, think in a very different way from us. What is good for us is lethal for them. They defend the water and the earth because it is life. There's a problem of understanding. This has been a tremendous problem ... We have to be serious and recognise that this isn't just the responsibility of the present government. There are just demands of the Amazon peoples from way back that haven't been dealt with, about issues such as health, education, roads, electricity. We have to listen to them and understand their vision of the world ...

http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=14453

[struggle4progress]

5. Peruvian minister resigns over killings in clashes with Indians

Carmen Vildoso, Peru’s Minister of Woman’s Affairs and Social Development, submitted her resignation from the cabinet late Monday on discrepancies over how the government managed the unrest of indigenous peoples in northern Peru that left at least sixty dead and dozens wounded.

This is the first resignation and political consequence from the cabinet of President Alan Garcia following violent clashes over the weekend after security forces cleared a highway in northern Peru blocked by indigenous groups protesting the opening of the Amazon region to logging, oil and minerals exploration ...

http://en.mercopress.com/2009/06/10/peruvian-minister-resigns-over-killings-in-clashes-with-indians

[struggle4progress]

6. Peru: labor, rights groups condemn killing of Amazon protesters

On June 5 Peru's largest labor confederation, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), condemned what it called "the slaughter ordered by the government of President Alan García," referring to the deaths of at least 20 police agents and indigenous protesters earlier that day when police tried to break up a demonstration blocking a road in Bagua province in the northern region of Amazonas. The CGTP called for Congress to repeal the decrees on drilling, mining and land rights that Amazonian indigenous groups had been protesting since April 9 ... (CGTP press release, June 5)

A June 5 statement by the Andean Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) said "56 days of peaceful indigenous struggle and of supposed dialogues and negotiations ... ended in the usual bullets, the same bullets as in more than 500 years of oppression." The group, including organizations in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, called for indigenous people to hold sit-ins in front of Peruvian embassies and for United Nations agencies and international organizations like Amnesty International and the International Labor Organization to "send missions immediately to Peru to stop this violence and to see that indigenous rights are respected." (CAOI statement, June 5 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales)

Colombian human rights and grassroots organizations planned a demonstration at the Peruvian embassy in Bogotá for the afternoon of June 8. Indigenous and other organizations in Mexico were to send an open letter to President García demanding the "cancellation of the international accords — like the FTA <Free Trade Agreement, TLC in Spanish> — that bring violence to the life of the Peruvian indigenous peoples" ... (Adital, June 8)

Meanwhile, the Peruvian government may be using the events as a pretext for cracking down on opposition legislators in the Congress, which is dominated by García's social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP). On June 6 Elizabeth León, vice president of the Congress's Ethics Commission, said the commission would investigate whether there were grounds to take action against Congress members who had supported Alberto Pizango Chota, the AIDESEP president ... (24 Horas Libre, Peru, June 7)

http://www.ww4report.com/node/7416

[Judi Lynn]

7. Peru's reporters are threatened, in link provided in Latin America forum by magbana:

Translated from Spanish:

Reports of Continued Threats Against Journalists in Amazonia

Yurimaguas-Loreto, 09/06/2009 (CNR): Despite the partial re-establishment of calm in the Amazonian conflict zone, reporters from diverse media are receiving threats to stop them from filing reports at a national level, the director of Radio TV Oriente, Geovani Acate, denounced today.

He explained that on his return to the city of Tarapoto in San Martin, he met with TV reporters who told him they had received telephone calls demanding that they stop informing about the Amazon protest.

"For example, the case of Jerry Izquierdo, cameraman at TV Oriente, who even had people going to his house who talked with his wife. They warned her he should stop sending reports to media companies in Lima because they could have problems (later)".

According to Acate, the authors of the threats are presumably police agents of the DIROES special operations unit.

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/peruvian-journalists-reporting-on.html