Showdown in Peru: Indigenous Communities Kick Out Canadian Mining Company September 21, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, bear creek, benjamin dangl, Canada, canada mining, canadian mining, mining industry, ollanta humala, Peru, peru economy, peru indigenous, peru mining, peru poverty, roger hollander
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Why Washington Is Worried About Peru June 2, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Foreign Policy, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alberto fujimori, alejandro toledo, foreign policy, keiko fujimori, Latin America, mark weisbrot, monroe doctrine, ollanta humala, Peru, peru election, roger hollander, vargas llosa
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If its preferred candidate Keiko Fujimori loses to Ollanta Humala, the US will be isolated against South America’s left governments
In just a few days, on Sunday 5 June, an election will take place that will have a significant influence on the western hemisphere. At the moment, it is too close to call. Most of official Washington has been relatively quiet, but there is no doubt that the Obama administration has a big stake in the outcome of this poll.
The election is in Peru, where left populist and former military officer Ollanta Humala is facing off against Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru’s former authoritarian ruler Alberto Fujimori, who was president from 1990-2000. Alberto Fujimori is in jail, serving a 25-year sentence for multiple political murders, kidnapping and corruption. Keiko has made it clear that she represents him and his administration, and has been surrounded by his associates and former officials of his government.
Fujimori was found to have had “individual criminal responsibility” for the murders and kidnappings. But his government was responsible for many more widespread murders and human rights abuses, including the forced sterilisation of tens of thousands of women, mostly indigenous.
Between the two candidates, whom do you think Washington would prefer?
If you guessed Keiko Fujimori, you guessed right. I spoke Monday night with Gustavo Gorriti in Lima, an award-winning Peruvian investigative journalist who was one of the people that Alberto Fujimori was convicted of kidnapping. “The US embassy strongly opposes Humala’s candidacy,” he said. Harvard professor of government Steven Levitsky, who has written extensively on Peru and is currently visiting professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), came to the same conclusion: “It’s clear that the US embassy here sees Keiko as the least bad option,” he told me from Lima on Tuesday.
Humala’s opponents argue that Peru’s democracy would be imperilled if he were elected, pointing to a military revolt that he led against Fujimori’s authoritarian government. (He was later pardoned by the Peruvian Congress.) But his record is hardly comparable to the actual, proven crimes of Alberto Fujimori.
Humala is also accused of being an ally of Venezuela‘s President Hugo Chávez. He has distanced himself from Chávez, unlike in his 2006 campaign for the presidency. But all of this is just a rightwing media stunt. Chávez has been demonised throughout the hemispheric media, and so rightwing media monopolies have used him as a bogeyman in numerous elections for years, with varying degrees of success. Of course, Venezuela is also irrelevant to the Peruvian election because almost all governments in South America are “allies of Chávez”. This is especially true of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay, for example, all of whom have very close and collaborative relations with Venezuela.
As in many other elections in Latin America, rightwing domination of the media is key to successful scare tactics. “The majority of TV stations and newspapers have been actively working for Fujimori in this election,” said Levitsky.
The thought of another Fujimori government is so frightening that a number of prominent conservative Peruvian politicians have decided to endorse Humala. Among these is the Nobel prize-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who hates the Latin American left as much as anyone. Humala has also been endorsed by Alejandro Toledo, the former Peruvian president and contender in the first round of this election.
So why would Washington want Fujimori? The answer is quite simple: it’s about Washington’s waning influence and power in its former “backyard” of Latin America. In South America, there are now left-of-centre governments in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. These governments have a common position on most hemispheric issues (and sometimes, other international issues, such as the Middle East), and it often differs from that of Washington.
For example, when the Honduran military overthrew the country’s elected left-of-centre president, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009, and the Obama administration sought to legitimise the coup government through elections that other governments would not recognise, it was Washington’s few rightwing allies that first broke ranks with the rest of South America.
Prior to last August, the only governments in South America that Washington could count as allies were Chile, Peru and Colombia. But Colombia under President Manuel Santos is no longer a reliable ally, and currently has very good co-operative relations with Venezuela. If Humala wins, there is little doubt that he will join the rest of South America on most issues of concern to Washington. The same cannot be said of Keiko Fujimori.
And that is why Washington is worried about this election.
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Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: weisbrot@cepr.net
Peru Indians Hail ‘Historic’ Day June 19, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Environment, First Nations, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, amazon environment, amazon rainforest, bolivia govenment, Evo Morales, Free Trade, fta, indigenous massacre, indigenous rights, peru amazon, peru congress, peru environment, peru government, peru indigenous, peru massacre, peru protest, peruvian amazon, roger hollander
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Indigenous groups in Peru have called off protests after two land laws which led to deadly fighting were revoked.
![[Natives armed with spears set a roadblock at the entrance of the Amazonian town of Yurimaguas, northern Peru, on June 10, 2009. Peru's Congress on Thursday revoked two controversial decrees on land ownership in the Amazon river basin which triggered protests by indigenous groups that left at least 34 people dead in early June. (AFP/File/Ernesto Benavides)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/peruindigenous_win.jpg "peruindigenous_win.jpg")
Natives armed with spears set a roadblock at the entrance of the Amazonian town of Yurimaguas, northern Peru, on June 10, 2009. Peru’s Congress on Thursday revoked two controversial decrees on land ownership in the Amazon river basin which triggered protests by indigenous groups that left at least 34 people dead in early June.(AFP/File/Ernesto Benavides)Hailing victory, Amazonian Indian groups said it was an “historic day”.
At least 34 people died during weeks of strikes against the legislation, which allowed foreign companies to exploit resources in the Amazon forest.
The violence provoked tension with Peru’s neighbour, Bolivia, where Preisdent Evo Morales backed the Peruvian Indians’ tribal rights.
“This is a historic day for indigenous people because it shows that our demands and our battles were just,” said Daysi Zapata, vice president of the Amazon Indian confederation that led the protests.
She urged fellow activists to end their action by lifting blockades of jungle rivers and roads set up since April across six provinces in the Peruvian Amazon.
The controversial laws, passed to implement a free trade agreement with the US, were revoked by Peru’s Congress by a margin of 82-12 after a five-hour debate.
Diplomatic dispute
The worst of the clashes occurred on 5 June when police tried to clear roadblocks set up by the groups at Bagua, 1,000km (600 miles) north of Lima.
At least 30 civilians died, according to Indian groups, as well as 23 police.
Peru’s Prime Minister Yehude Simon said the reversal of policy would not put at risk Peru’s free trade agreement with the US, but he has said he will step down once the dispute is settled.
The dispute led to a diplomatic row between Peru and Latin American neighbours Venezuela and Bolivia.
Peru recalled its ambassador to Bolivia for consultation on Tuesday after Bolivian President Evo Morales described the deaths of the indigenous protesters as a genocide caused by free trade.
Peru’s Foreign Minister Jose Antonia Garcia Belaunde called Mr Morales an “enemy of Peru”.
BBC © MMIX
Massacre in the Amazon: The US/Peru Free Trade Agreement Sparks a Battle Over Land and Resources June 18, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment, First Nations, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, amazon, amazon ecology, amazon environment, APRA, environment, Free Trade, fta, human rights, indigenous, indigenous rights, oxfam, Peru, peru amazon, peru constitution, peru environment, peru government, peru massacre, peru politics, raul zibechi, roger hollander
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by Raúl Zibechi
On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands-a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.
Three MI-17 helicopters took off from the base of the National Police in El Milagro at six in the morning of Friday, June 5. They flew over Devil’s Curve, the part of the highway that joins the jungle with the northern coast, which had been occupied for the past 10 days by some 5,000 Awajún and Wampi indigenous peoples. The copters launched tear gas on the crowd (other versions say that they also shot machine guns), while simultaneously a group of agents attacked the road block by ground, firing AKM rifles. A hundred people were wounded by gunshot and between 20-25 were killed.
The population of the nearby city of Bagua, some thousand kilometers northeast of Lima near the border with Ecuador, came out into the streets to support the indigenous people’s demonstration, setting fire to state institutions and local office of the official party APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana). Several police officers were attacked and killed in the counter-attack, and other indigenous protestors were killed by police. At the same time, a group of 38 police who were guarding an oil station in the Amazon were taken hostage. Some were killed by their captors, while some 1,000 Indians threatened to set fire to Station Number 6 of the northern Peruvian oil pipeline.
The versions are contradictory. The government claimed days after the events that there are 11 indigenous dead and 23 police. The indigenous organizations reported 50 dead among their ranks and up to 400 disappeared. According to witnesses, the military burned bodies and threw them into the river to hide the massacre, and also took prisoners among the wounded in the hospitals. In any case, what is certain is that the government sent the armed forces to evict a peaceful protest that had been going on for 57 days in the jungle regions of five departments: Amazonas, Cusco, Loreto, San Martin, and Ucayali.
The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), part of the Organization of American States, condemned the violent acts on June 8 and reminded the Peruvian government of its obligation to clear up the facts and to compensate for the consequences and called on both sides to promote a process of dialogue.1 On June 9, the National Coordination of Human Rights announced that it found a series of irregularities and possible human rights violations in the Bagua area. It denounced the government’s refusal to divulge what police are in charge of the investigation of the events, and expressed concern for the situation of 25 detained at the El Milagro base and the 99 arrested since a curfew was imposed in Bagua.2
President Garcia accused the Indians of being “terrorists” and spoke of an “international conspiracy,” in which, according to government ministers, Bolivia and Venezuela are involved because as oil- and gas-producing countries they want to keep Peru from exploiting these resources and becoming a competitor.3 Just a few weeks ago, Peru granted asylum to the anti-Chavez leader, Venezuelan Manuel Rosas, accused of corruption, and three former Bolivian ministers from the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lazada prosecuted for the death of nearly 700 persons during the “gas war” of October 2003.
On Tuesday, June 9, the minister of Women and Social Development, Carmen Vildoso, resigned in protest of the way the government handled the situation. According to Prime Minister Yehude Simon, her resignation was due to her disapproval of a publicity spot emitted by the government in which, with the background of photos of dead police and indigenous people throwing spears and arrows, it presented the natives as “savages,” “fierce assassins,” and “extremists” that follow “international orders” to “stop Peru’s development” and keep the country from taking advantage of its oil.” The spot claims there was no repression but rather “a savage assassination of humble policemen.”4
The leader of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP, by its Spanish initials), that groups some 300,000 indigenous persons and 1,350 communities, Albert Pizango, was considered a “delinquent” by the Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas and ordered captured. Pizango sought asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima. The parliamentary group of the official party accused the left, the leader of the Nationalist Party of Peru Ollanta Humala, and the media in the Amazon region of “having induced acts of violence so that the natives would attack the police,” and threatened to accuse them of terrorism.
History of the Conflict
The conflict began on April 9, when Amazon peoples mobilized to block the highways and gas and oil pipelines to protest the implementation of a series of decrees passed to implement the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. But the situation got worse on June 4, when the APRA stopped Congress from debating repeal of some laws questioned by the indigenous peoples that had already been declared unconstitutional by a Constitutions Commission.
The FTA with the United States was negotiated beginning in May of 2004 under the government of Alejandro Toledo (2000-2005). The treaty was slated to replace the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act signed in 2002 and in effect until December of 2006. The FTA eliminated obstacles to trade and facilitated access to goods and services and investment flows. Modeled on the North American free Trade Agreement, it also includes a broad range of issues linked to intellectual property, public contracting and services, and dispute resolution.5
The U.S-Peru FTA was signed on Dec. 8, 2005 in Washington by then-Presidents George W. Bush and Alan Garcia. In June of 2006 it was ratified by Peru and in December of 2007 by the U.S. Congress. On Feb 1, 2009, the agreement went into effect after Bush and Garcia signed it on January 16 of that year.
The signing of the FTA caused huge mobilizations in 2005, especially among peasant farmers who were the most harmed by the elimination of tariffs and trade protections. Although the government said it would provide compensation to producers, these never arrived. On February 18, 2008 they staged a National Agrarian Stoppage with road blocks throughout the country that led to four dead from police repression and the imposition of a state of emergency in eight provinces.
On October 28, 2007, Alan Garcia published a long article in the daily paper El Comercio of Lima under the title “The Syndrome of the Orchard Dog.” Garcia described nature as a resource, and maintained that to refuse to exploit it was foolish, ignoring the debate over the conservation of the Amazon region. “The old anti-capitalist communist of the 19th century disguised himself as a protectionist in the 20th century, and donned the label of an environmentalist in the 21st century.”
In his opinion, those who oppose the intensive exploitation of the Amazon region are like an orchard dog, that “doesn’t eat or let anyone else eat.”
“There are millions of hectares that the communities and associations have not cultivated or will cultivate, as well as hundreds of mineral deposits that cannot be worked and millions of hectares of sea that cannot be used for aquaculture and production. The rivers that run down both sides of the mountain range are a fortune that pours into the ocean without producing electric energy,” Garcia states in the article.
“The first resource is the Amazon,” he maintains. There are 63 million hectares that he proposes be parceled out into large properties of “5,000, 10,000, or 20,000 hectares, since in less land there is no formal investment long term and high technology.”
On the land, he notes that one should not “deliver small lots of land to poor families that do not have a penny to invest,” and that “this same land sold in large lots will attract technology.” He cares little that these lands are the collective property of the communities, since in his opinion they are just “idle lands because the owner does not have the training or the resources economic, that’s why their property is feigned.”
The Free Trade Agreement and the Legislative Decrees
Based on this logic of converting everything into merchandise, the government asked Congress for faculties to legislate issues relative to the implementation of the FTA through Legislative Decrees (LD). On December 19, 2007, Congress gave full faculties to the government to legislate for six months by decree issues related to the FTA, through Law 29157. Mandated by these powers, the executive drafted 99 laws that are at the root of the current conflict.
An independent judicial report distributed by Oxfam America concludes that the executive branch took advantage of the powers granted it by Congress “to issue a large number of norms with no or very little effective links to the FTA, distorting and alienating the terms of the delegation of powers approved by Congress.”6
Consequently, the report establishes that “such decrees can be qualified as unconstitutional for reasons of form,” and that therefore “merits their derogation” by Congress or the Constitutional Tribunal. It also notes that through the 99 LDs “a substantial reform of the organizational and jurisdictional framework of various government entities has been attempted, as well as the regulatory framework applicable to economic activities of special relevance,” without strict relation to the FTA.7
The most controversial of the degrees are numbers 1015 and 1073, declared unconstitutional by the Oxfam report. Theses decrees modify the number of votes required to sell communal lands (just three votes could place community land up for sale). Number 1015 was repealed by Congress in August of 2008. Decree 1064 (legal Framework for Use of Agrarian Lands), abolishes the requirement of the previous agreement to undertake projects and is also considered unconstitutional.
LD 1083 (Promotion of Efficient Use and Conservation of Hydraulic Resources) favors the privatization of water to large consumers such as mining companies. LD 1081, 1079, and 1020 deregulate diverse aspects of legislation in areas of mining, timber, and hydrocarbon exploitation. But it is LD 1090 (Forestry and Woodland Fauna Law) that is at the crux of the debate. It leaves out of the forestry framework 45 million hectares, that is, 64% of the forests of Peru, including their biodiversity in flora and fauna, making it possible to sell them to transnational corporations.
On April 9, the 1,350 communities that make up the AIDESEP agreed to start demonstrating within their communities. Prime Minister Simon called the April 18 indigenous demands “capricious.” On May 5, the bishops of eight Catholic dioceses demanded that President Alan Garcia repeal the decrees because they consider them “a threat to the Amazon.” On May 10, the government decreed a State of Emergency in five regions of the country where road blocks and blockages of ports and oil pipelines were taking place.
On May 19, the Constitution Commission of parliament declared LD 1090 unconstitutional. The report of the Commission8 concludes that the decree “does not respect the limitations that are established in Articles 101 and 104 of the Political Constitution, in terms of areas that cannot be legislated.” It also notes that “it goes against Article 66 of the constitution, by regulating in the area of natural resources, that is exclusively reserved for the organic law.”
In short, legislators agreed that the executive branch does not have the faculties to legislate by decree in certain areas according to the constitution, and that must be done in Congress. The decision of the Commission must still be debated in Congress, but on May 22 the minister of justice, Rosario Fernandez, denounced Alberto Pizango, leader of the AIDESEP, for sedition and conspiracy. On May 26, Awaj’un and Wampis took over the Belaunde Terry highway on Devil’s Curve and some 1,200 indigenous people surrounded Station 6.
On May 26, there was a huge demonstration in Lima in support of the Amazon struggle. On May 28, community landholders from the Cusco jungle took over a second valve of the gas pipeline of Kamisea. On June 1, industrialists and exporters demanded that the government “apply the law” to free the highways and pipelines in the Amazon. On June 2, the president of the Permanent Forum of the United Nations on Indigenous Questions asked the Peruvian government to “immediately suspend the state of siege against indigenous communities and organizations and “avoid any action, such as military intervention, that could increase the conflict.”9
On June 4, the APRA majority of parliament decided to suspend the debate on the unconstitutionality of LD 1090. The People’s Defender presented a grievance of unconstitutionality against LD 1064. On June 5, 639 agents of Special Operatives and staff of the armed forces attacked the indigenous on Devil’s Curve with dozens of dead, and hundreds of wounded and disappeared.
The Amazon protest has not died down since the massacre-nearly all the 56 Amazon indigenous peoples reaffirmed that they would continue the road blocks until the government repeals the Legislative Decrees that the violate Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and their rights over their territories. According to their testimonies, the situation is explosive. Alan Garcia has a history of violent repression. Under his first presidency in 1986, the armed forces forcefully put down a coordinated prison riot that left over a hundred prisoners shot dead. In this context, the Peruvian government could very well increase the violence unleashed on the indigenous movement.
Hugo Blanco, a well-known Peruvian movement activist and editor of the monthly Lucha Indígena, takes a long look in a recent editorial: “After 500 years of silencing, the Amazon peoples receive the support of the peoples of Peru and the world. It could be the greatest achievement of this campaign has been to make these nationalities visible, weaving links between diverse sectors of the country, as divided as those who dominate. By defending the Amazon we are defending the life of all of humanity; and by not ceding to the deceit of the government, they are rewriting history, recuperating for all the sense of the word dignity.”
End Notes
- Servindi, June 9, 2009.
- Idem.
- La Jornada, June 7, 2009 base on reports from Reuters, AFP, and DPA.
- Página 12, June 10, 2009.
- Peru Gets its Free Trade Agreement with the United States, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4726.
- Francisco Eguiguren, ob. cit. p. 96.
- Idem p. 97.
- “Informe sobre DL 1090. Comisión de Constitución y Reglamento,” May 19, 2009 at www.servindi.org.
- Chronology taken from Lucha Indígena No. 35 and Ana Maria Vidal ob. cit.
Translated for the Americas Program by Laura Carlsen.
© 2009 Center for International Policy (CIP)
Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for Brecha of Montevideo, Uruguay, lecturer and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to several social groups. He writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the Americas Program (www.americasprogram.org).
US-Peru FTA Sparks Indigenous Massacre June 12, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment, First Nations, Human Rights, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, amazon ecology, amazon rainfores, environment protection, Free Trade, fta, human rights, human rights abuses, indigenous protest, indigenous rights, peru free trade, peru government, peru massacre, peru military, peru protests, peruvian amazon, peur disappeared, rainforest, roger hollander, tom loudon
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Thursday 11 June 2009
by: Tom Loudon, t r u t h o u t | Report, www.truthout.org
During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, confrontations between nonviolent indigenous protesters and police have left up to 100 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians, who have been conducting peaceful demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest.
For almost two months, as many as 30,000 indigenous people have been blocking road and river traffic, demanding the repeal of presidential decrees issued last year to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru FTA. According to the indigenous leaders, several of these decrees directly threaten indigenous territories and rights. After having attempted several times to negotiate with the government the repeal of the most egregious of the decrees, and faced with a permanent influx of extraction equipment into the region, the people decided it was imperative to “put their bodies in front of the machines” in order to prevent this equipment from entering their territory.
On Friday, June 5, the government decided the protests needed to end and launched an aggressive assault against the people protesting on the road outside of Bagua. The dislocation was conducted from helicopters and the ground, with police and army using automatic weapons and heavy equipment against people armed with only rocks and spears. As videos, photos and testimonies from the region slowly emerge, it is clear that this was designed to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible, and deter those in other regions from continuing protests. Pictures circulating on the Internet depict snipers in uniform firing at protesters from the streets, tanks and from on top of buildings. On Saturday, in Lima, Peru’s capital, a large spontaneous demonstration in support of the Amazonian indigenous was broken up by police.
In the wake of what appears to be a massacre perpetrated by the police, the government of President Alan Garcia is mounting a massive propaganda campaign, claiming that indigenous protesters attacked the police, and accusing them of being terrorists. Human rights lawyers have accused Peru’s government of a cover-up, and have been impeded from getting in to investigate more fully. The Bishop’s Vicariate for the Environment for Jaen, Nicanor Alvarado, said “The main problem is that injured and deceased civilians are being transferred to the “El Milagro” military base … so, it’s possible that a group of injured and deceased people are disappeared later on.”
Credible accusations are emerging that the police are systematically disappearing civilian bodies by burning or throwing then in rivers. Right now, people in the region are preparing lists of those missing to document the large number of civilians disappeared. Amnesty International has issued a warning expressing concern for the scores of demonstrators who were detained last weekend.
The head of Peru’s Justice Ministry issued a warrant for the arrest of Alberto Pizango on sedition charges. Pizango is president of AIDESEP, the main indigenous organization involved in the protests. Pizango has taken refuge in the Nicaraguan Embassy and it appears that Nicaragua will grant him asylum. Arrest warrants have been issued for several other leaders as well.
The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues issued an urgent call to the government of Peru, demanding that the violence against the indigenous people cease, that medical attention be made available to the wounded and that the Peruvian government abide by its international obligations regarding the protection of all human rights, especially the people’s right to life and security.
The tragic violence currently unleashed in the Peruvian Amazon is directly linked to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Peru. On Sunday, interviewed at one of the many roadblocks set up by the demonstrators, indigenous leader and protester Luis Huansi stated, “We will not give up until they reverse the laws that damage us. They want to take away our lands and forests and make our traditions disappear.”
Indigenous leaders promise that the protests will not end with this latest violence from the government. There have already been calls for international tribunals to investigate and, if their findings so indicate, to hold the government responsible for this massacre.
On June 8, Minister Carmen Vildoso, the Women’s Issues and Social Development minister, announced her resignation in protest of the government’s response. There is building pressure for the resignation of Cabinet Chief Yehude Simon and Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas. Although President Garcia has stated that he will not backpedal, international pressure is growing for the actions of the police and military to be brought to light.
A national strike has been called in Peru for June 11 by the newly formed “National Front for Life and Sovereignty,” which includes a broad spectrum of Peruvian national organizations. Protests in solidarity have happened in many parts of the world, and people will be watching closely for how the Peruvian government responds to the strike.
For more news and information on what is happening in Peru, visit: http://art-us.org/ or http://peruanista.blogspot.com/.
Tom Loudon is co-director of the Quixote Center in Washington, DC.
Peru: Save the Amazon June 11, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment, First Nations, Human Rights, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, amazon ecology, amazon farming, amazon peoples, amazon rainforest, avaaz, environment, environmental protection, human rights, indigenous rights, peru free trade, peru government, peru human rights, peru indigenous, peru massacre, peru protest, roger hollander
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Dear friends,
 Peru’s government is clashing violently with indigenous groups protesting the rapid devastation of the Amazon rainforest by mining, oil and logging companies. The forest is a global treasure – let’s stand with the protesters and sign the petition to President Garcia to stop the violence and save the Amazon:
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The Peruvian government has pushed through legislation that could allow extractive and large-scale farming companies to rapidly destroy their Amazon rainforest.
Indigenous peoples have peacefully protested for two months demanding their lawful say in decrees that will contribute to the devastation of the Amazon’s ecology and peoples, and be disastrous for the global climate. But last weekend President Garcia responded: sending in special forces to suppress protests in violent clashes, and labelling the protesters as terrorists.
These indigenous groups are on the frontline of the struggle to protect our earth — Let’s stand with them and call on President Alan Garcia (who is widely known to be sensitive to his international reputation) to immediately stop the violence and open up dialogue. Click below to sign the urgent global petition and a prominent and well-respected Latin-American politician will deliver it to the government on our behalf.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/peru_stop_violence
More than 70 per cent of the Peruvian Amazon is now up for grabs. Giant oil and gas companies, like the Anglo-French Perenco and the North Americans ConocoPhillips and Talisman Energy, have already pledged multi-billionaire investments in the region. These extractive industries have a very poor record of bringing benefits to local people and preserving the environment in developing countries – which is why indigenous groups are asking for internationally-recognized rights to consultation on the new laws.
For decades the world and indigenous peoples have watched as extractive industries devastated the rainforest that is home to some and a vital treasure to us all (some climate scientists call the Amazon the “lungs of the planet” – breathing in the carbon emissions that cause global warming and producing oxygen).
The protests in Peru are the biggest yet and the most desperate, we can’t afford to let them fail. Sign the petition, and encourage your friends and family to join us, so we can help bring justice to the indigenous peoples of Peru and prevent further acts of violence from all parties.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/peru_stop_violence
In solidarity,
Luis, Paula, Alice, Ricken, Graziela, Ben, Brett, Iain, Pascal, Raj, Taren and the entire Avaaz team.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8092453.stm
http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/765/en/global_witness_condems_violence_in_peru
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN09374943
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002932
http://www.survival-international.org/news/4640
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6326741.stm
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‘Police Are Throwing Bodies in the River,’ Say Native Protesters June 9, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment, First Nations, Peru.Tags: alan garcia, amazon rainforest, amazon watch, human rights, indigenous protest, indigenous rights, milagros salazar, Peru, peru agribusiness, peru amazon, peru biofuel, peru environment, peru free trade, peru human rights, peru indigenous, peru logging, peru massacre, peru mining, peru neo-liberal, peru oil, roger hollander
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LIMA – There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed.
The authorities, who describe last Friday’s incident as a “clash” between the police and protesters manning a roadblock, say 22 policemen and nine civilians were killed.
But leaders of the two-month roadblock say at least 40 indigenous people, including three children, were killed and that the authorities are covering up the massacre by throwing bodies in the river.
And foreign activists on the scene in the town of Bagua, in the northern province of Amazonas, report that the police opened fire early in the morning on the unarmed protesters, some of whom were still sleeping, and deliberately mowed them down as they held up their arms or attempted to flee.
In response, the activists quote eyewitnesses as saying, another group of indigenous people who were farther up the hill seized and killed a number of police officers, apparently in “self-defense.”
National ombudswoman Beatriz Merino reported Sunday night that at least 24 police and 10 civilians had been killed, and that 89 indigenous people had been wounded and 79 arrested. But the figures continue to grow.
“We have killed each other, Peruvians against Peruvians,” lamented indigenous leader Shapion Noningo, the new spokesman for the Peruvian Rainforest Inter-Ethnic Development Association (AIDESEP) – which groups 28 federations of indigenous peoples – said Sunday night.
AIDESEP has led the protests that began two months ago, which have included blockades of traffic along roads and rivers and occupations of oil industry installations in various provinces.
A few hours earlier, President Alán García had said there was “a conspiracy afoot to try to keep us from making use of our natural wealth.” He was referring to the fierce opposition by the country’s native peoples to 10 decrees issued by his government that open up indigenous land to private investment by oil, mining and logging companies and to agribusiness, including biofuel plantations.
The decrees, which were passed by the government under special powers received from Congress to facilitate implementation of Peru’s free trade agreement with the United States, are considered unconstitutional by the indigenous protesters. A legislative committee also recommended last December that they be overturned.
On Thursday, Jun. 4, governing party lawmakers suspended a debate on one of the decrees, the “forestry and wildlife law”, fueling the demonstrators’ anger.
“In whose interest is it for Peru not to use its natural gas; in whose interest is it for Peru not to find more oil; in whose interest is it for Peru not to exploit its minerals more effectively and on a larger-scale? We know whose interests this serves,” said García. “The important thing is to identify the ties between these international networks that are emerging to foment unrest.”
The president blamed the conflict on “international competitors,” but without naming names.
Two neighboring countries that are major producers of natural gas and oil, Venezuela and Bolivia, are governed by left-wing administrations that have been vociferous critics of “neoliberal” free trade economic policies like those followed by the García administration.
“We will not give in to violence or blackmail,” said the president, who maintained that Peru “is suffering from subversive aggression” fed by opponents who “have taken the side of extreme savagery.”
A large number of the traffic blockades on roads and rivers are in the northern and northeastern provinces of Loreto, San Martín and Amazonas, which have large natural gas reserves.
According to the 1993 census, indigenous people made up one-third of the Peruvian population. But more recent estimates put the proportion at 45 percent, with most of the rest of the population of 28 million being of mixed-race heritage.
In Loreto, indigenous protesters reportedly attempted to occupy installations belonging to the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. The company said it had closed down activity on its 1AB lot, to avoid violent clashes.
Business associations estimate the losses caused by the protests at more than 186 million dollars.
The government is broadcasting a television spot showing images of dead policemen, along with messages like: “This is how extremism is acting against Peru”; “extremists encouraged from abroad want to block progress in Peru”; and “we must unite against crime, to keep the fatherland from backsliding from the progress made.”
Leaders of the indigenous protests say the government is manipulating information and blaming them for incidents that could have been avoided if Congress had repealed the decrees that sparked the first native “uprising” in August 2008, which flared up again in April this year.
“The government is underreporting the number of indigenous people killed and missing. It is insulting us and treating us like criminals, when all we are doing is defending ourselves and our territory, which is humanity’s heritage,” Walter Kategari, a member of the AIDESEP board of directors, told IPS.
Kategari forms part of AIDESEP’s new leadership, which was formed when the group’s top leader, Alberto Pizango, went into hiding after a warrant for his arrest was put out on Saturday. Pizango said he fears for his life.
The leaders of the indigenous movement are demanding that the curfew prohibiting people from leaving their homes in Bagua between 3:00 PM and 6:00 AM be lifted. According to Kategari, the curfew is being used to conceal the bodies of the Indians who were killed.
“Our brothers and sisters in Bagua say the police have been collecting the bodies, putting them in black bags and throwing them in the river from a helicopter,” Kategari told IPS. “The government cannot make our dead disappear.”
There is great insecurity and fear in the jungle, he added. “People are calling us on the telephone, desperate.” He said he is preparing a list of victims based on the names he has been given by people in Bagua, to counteract the official reports.
Gregor MacLennan, program coordinator for the international organization Amazon Watch, said “All eyewitness testimonies say that Special Forces opened fire on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators, including from helicopters, killing and wounding dozens in an orchestrated attempt to open the roads. “It seems that the police had come with orders to shoot. This was not a clash, but a coordinated police raid with police firing on protesters from both sides of their blockade,” added the activist, speaking from the town of Bagua. “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 MacLennan, in an Amazon Watch statement.
“Hospital workers in Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande corroborated that the police took bodies of the dead from their premises to an undisclosed location,” he added.
According to MacLennan, shortly before the killings in Bagua, the police chief and mayors met with the indigenous leaders, and the police chief said he had orders to dismantle the roadblock.
Early Friday morning, the activist told Amy Goodman in an interview on the Democracy Now radio program, an estimated 500 police bore down on the protesters at the roadblock, some of whom were still sleeping, and opened fire.
MacLennan said a local leader told him that demonstrators kneeling down with their hands up were directly shot by the police. After that, he said, the police continued firing as the demonstrators attempted to flee.
With respect to the deaths of the policemen, he said “All the indigenous people I’ve spoken to are very upset about that equally…they say…they’re all Peruvians, and they all have families. It appears that as the police were attacking this huge group of indigenous people…some people came down from the mountains, who were sleeping up there, and jumped on the police and killed some of the police in self-defence, an act that’s understandable, but, as the leaders I’ve spoken to say, not excusable.”
He said the indigenous leaders want a “transparent” investigation and for all of those responsible for the killings to be brought to justice.
Unconstitutional government decrees
AIDESEP spokesman Noningo said “the political system has fomented this confrontation.” He pointed out that a multi-party legislative commission recommended in December that the decrees be repealed.
The congressional constitution committee also said the “forestry and wildlife law”, which according to critics endangers the rainforest that is home to the indigenous groups, is unconstitutional.
On Thursday Jun. 4, the ombudsperson’s office filed a lawsuit against the law, alleging that it is unconstitutional and that it undermines indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural identity, collective ownership of their land, and prior consultation.
Under the Peruvian constitution and International Labor Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, indigenous groups must be previously consulted with respect to any investment projects in their territory.
The “forestry and wildlife law”, whose stated aim is to “create the necessary conditions for private sector investment in agriculture,” violates the property rights of indigenous communities, according to the ombudsperson’s office.
But the president of Congress, Javier Velásquez Quesquén, said the legislators will not give in to “blackmail” by indigenous people.
Sociologist Nelson Manrique at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, a private university in Lima, said “the indigenous protesters are being accused of asking for too much because they are demanding compliance with the constitution, when it is the government that is breaking the law by refusing to revoke the decrees.”
The analyst told IPS that the arguments set forth by the authorities are like those of the ruling elites, who “use two stereotypes in their depictions of indigenous people: the manipulated savage who cannot argue anything in legal terms because he is incapable of thinking, or the bloody, irrational savage who is a threat to the country.
“With this discourse, the government feeds into old racist prejudices that have deep roots in Peruvian society: that of the uncivilised, inferior native. And democracy is impossible with a view like this,” said Manrique.
He said the controversial decrees form part of García’s free trade political agenda based on promoting foreign investment.
Manrique supports the indigenous groups’ demand for an independent commission to investigate what happened in Bagua, saying it was hard to believe that police armed with AKM assault rifles simply fell prey to indigenous people armed with bows and arrows and homemade weapons.
Wilfredo Ardito, lawyer for the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos human rights association, told IPS that international bodies should intervene, because “there is a climate of total distrust and fear that evidence of the massacre will be hidden.”
Ardito said that since García took office in July 2006, there have been 84 reports of deaths of protesters or extrajudicial killings by the security forces. “This is a regime that undermines human rights and that is doing nothing to redress its errors,” said the legal expert.
Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service
Peru: Rights Groups Applaud Fujimori Conviction April 9, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Latin America, Peru.Tags: alberto fujimori, Amnesty International, colina group, disappearances, human rights, International law, keiko fujimori, kidnapping, latin america politics, maoist guerrillas, marina litvinsky, peru assasination, peru death squads, peru dirty war, peru justice, peruvian army, roger hollander, shining path, torture, Vladimiro Montesinos
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| Written by Marina Litvinsky | |
| www.upsidedownworld.org, Wednesday, 08 April 2009 | |
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(IPS)-Human rights groups welcomed the conviction of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday on charges of murder and kidnapping.
“After years of evading justice, Fujimori is finally being held to account for some of his crimes,” said Maria McFarland, senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch, (HRW) who was in the courtroom for the verdict’s announcement. “With this ruling, and its exemplary performance during the trial, the Peruvian court has shown the world that even former heads of state cannot expect to get away with serious crimes.” At the end of the 15-month trial, a panel of judges found the 70-year-old Fujimori, who was president from 1990-2000, guilty of ordering two major massacres: the execution of fourteen adults and an eight-year old boy in the Barrios Altos neighbourhood of Lima on Nov. 3, 1991; and the kidnapping, disappearance and murder of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University on Jul. 18, 1992. He was also found responsible for the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer in 1992. The murders were committed by an Army Intelligence Service (SIE) death squad known as the Colina group, believed to be supervised by Fujimori’s closest advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos. “Justice has been done in Peru,” said Amnesty International (AI) special adviser Javier Zuniga, who had been monitoring the trial in Lima. “This is an historic day. It’s not every day that we see a former head of state being convicted for human rights violations such as torture, kidnapping and enforced disappearances. We hope that it’s just the first of many trials in both Latin America and throughout the world.” Fujimori resigned by fax and fled to his parents’ native Japan in 2000 amidst allegations of bribery and corruption. In 2005 he secretly flew to Chile in hopes of running again for president. But he was immediately arrested, and was extradited to Peru in 2007. The ruling confirmed independent findings from both the New York-based HRW and the London-based AI that Fujimori was responsible for the atrocities committed by the Colina group. A 2005 HRW report, “Probable Cause: Evidence Implicating Fujimori”, detailed the substantial evidence then available linking Fujimori to the Colina group and its activities. The evidence included extensive official documentation and testimony showing that the Colina group was not a rogue operation, but existed as a formal structure within the army. Its members received resources and logistical support from the highest levels of the army and the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which were completely under Fujimori’s control. AI, which has been closely following Fujimori’s trial through local and international observers, established that serious human rights violations and crimes against international law – such as torture, killings and enforced disappearance – which, given their widespread and systematic nature, constituted crimes against humanity, were committed under Fujimori. In September 2008, Kate Doyle, a senior analyst at the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA), gave expert testimony in the trial on the nature of the 21 U.S. documents that were submitted to the court as evidence by the prosecution team. During her testimony she noted that the documents reflected the conclusions of the U.S. Embassy that Fujimori had engaged in a “covert strategy to aggressively fight against subversion through terror operations, disregarding human rights and legal norms.” The NSA, a public policy research centre, posted key declassified U.S. documents Tuesday that were submitted as evidence in the court proceedings. The declassified records contain intelligence gathered by U.S. officials from Peruvian sources on the secret creation of “assassination teams” as part of Fujimori’s counterterrorism operations, the role of the Peruvian security forces in human rights atrocities and Fujimori’s participation in protecting the military from investigation. One document from August 1990 details how “only weeks after Fujimori’s election,” an intelligence officer working with the SIN reported to U.S. embassy officials on a covert plan, purportedly “the brainchild of presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos,” to conduct extra-judicial assassinations of suspected terrorists. “The training of these new ‘assassination teams’ is already underway,” the source reported. He also stated that the plan had “the tacit approval of President Fujimori.” Fujimori is the first democratically elected Latin American leader to be tried in his own country for human rights abuses. “This court’s ruling is important not only because of its content, but also because it demonstrates the crucial role an independent tribunal can play in addressing past abuses and shoring up the rule of law,” said HRW’s McFarland. AI found that prior to 1990, human rights violations were widespread in Peru, and used this occasion to call for further investigation and justice. “Now it is vital that all those responsible for human rights violations committed in Peru, including those perpetrated prior to the government of Alberto Fujimori, be brought before the courts,” said Zuniga. “Enforced disappearances, torture and rape are crimes that are not subject to statute of limitations if they are committed on a widespread basis, as happened in Peru.” Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, is already serving a six-year term after being found guilty in 2007 of ordering an illegal raid on the home of the estranged wife of his former spy chief, Montesinos. The former president also faces future corruption charges for wiretapping opposition figures and giving 15 million dollars of government money to Montesinos, among other allegations. Fujimori is not without supporters. He is credited with curbing inflation and crushing the Maoist Shining Path insurgency during Peru’s 1980-2000 “dirty war”. His followers account for 13 seats in the 120-member Peruvian Congress, and his daughter, Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, is considered a leading candidate to succeed current President Alan García in 2011 elections. She said she would pardon her father if elected. Defending himself, Fujimori told the court, “I governed from hell, not the palace.” He blamed Montesinos for any counter-insurgency excesses and questioned why his predecessors were not also tried for human rights violations. Fujimori is expected to appeal the conviction before the Supreme Court, but human rights groups are confident the verdict will stand. “We would like to believe that the court will continue to show the same transparency and impartiality it has demonstrated during the trial phase,” said HRW’s McFarland. |
Not Just Change But Justice: Toward a New Foreign Policy January 13, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Latin America, Bolivia, Colombia, Barack Obama, Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Foreign Policy.Tags: School of the Americas, roger hollander, Latin America, democracy, foreign policy, soa, U.S. imperialism, washington consensus, obama administration, solidarity, latin america policy, anti-militarization, soa watch, latin american studies, self-determination, global justice
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Join grassroots activists and organizers for a series of events for a new Latin America policy, against empire and militarization.
The human rights detective May 12, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Guatemala, Human Rights, Latin America, Peru.Tags: Efrain Rios Montt, guatemala, human rights, jefferson morley, kate doyle, Latin America, Peru, roger hollander, Vladimir Montesinos
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ROGER’S NOTE: NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE GOVERNMENTS OF PERU AND GUATEMALA UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES THESE ATROCITIES WERE COMMITTED, WERE AT THE TIME ACTIVELY SUPPORTED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
Friday, May 11, 2012 06:00 PM EST, www.salon.com
How Kate Doyle pursues war criminals in Latin America
By Jefferson Morley
Kate Doyle’s job isn’t exactly journalism, though she’s nailed more big stories than many Pulitzer Prize winners. Her work does not quite qualify as law enforcement either, though a few bad guys living in confined quarters rue the day she came into their lives. “Human rights detective” sounds flippant, so she prefers “forensic archivist.”
Whatever you call it, war criminals have to pay attention. Last month Doyle, a senior analyst at the non-profit National Security Archive, testified as an expert witness in the Peruvian government’s prosecution of Vladimir Montesinos, the country’s former intelligence chief, who is on trial for ordering the execution of 14 captured leftist guerrillas in 1997. Doyle authenticated a declassified CIA cable she had obtained that included a first person account of Montesinos’s actions.
In the near future, she hopes to take the stand as an expert witness against former de facto Guatemalan president Efrain Rios Montt, who presided over a genocidal “scorched earth” war that killed an estimated 200,000 people in the early 1980s, the worst genocide in the Western Hemisphere in the 20th century. An investigation documented 626 different massacres committed by the U.S.-backed military forces between 1979 and 1984; most of the victims were unarmed Mayan Indians.
Doyle’s forensic investigations over the last 20 years have made her an irritant to governments everywhere — including Washington — as well a friend to the families of the victims of human rights abuses throughout Latin America. She has won a host of awards, including this year’s Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive and Puffin Foundation award for human rights activism, one of the world’s largest prizes in the field. She will share the award with fellow investigator Fredy Peccerelli, who is the executive director of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation.
“She speaks with such strength because she speaks as an American,” Peccerelli said in an interview. “Very few times do you have someone investigating their own government and pointing to their own officials about their involvement. Kate speaks about the responsibility that Americans bear because of what they did. It’s very powerful.”
(Full disclosure: Doyle is a friend. I relied on CIA documents she obtained from the National Security Archive to write my book Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. Like many journalists in Washington and Latin America, I have found her work to be built on a solid foundation of official documentation from the U.S. and other governments. )
She’s also a passionate advocate of freedom of information laws. Thanks in part to her work, seven Latin American countries have adopted freedom of information laws since 2000. The most distinctive feature of these laws is that, unlike the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, they explicitly forbid the withholding of information about human rights abuses on grounds of “national security.” A provision she calls “very important but untested.”
“Having a legal mechanism to obligate the state to provide information is just the beginning,” says Doyle. She shares the information with prosecutors to develop cases based on “criminal patterns of action” that yield specific details of a disappearance or a massacre. Peccerelli’s forensic anthropologists exhume bodies and do DNA analysis.
Doyle has been largely frustrated in Mexico and El Salvador, where legal authorities are reluctant to confront the abuses of the past. But in Guatemala, she and her colleagues have uncovered some remarkable stories that have led to the prosecution of military officers involved in war crimes.
In the late 1990s, a source gave Guatemalan human rights activists a 54-page army log that revealed the fate of scores of people who were “disappeared” by security forces during the mid-1980s. The log included photos of 183 of the victims, along with coded references to their executions.
For the families of the victims, the results of the discovery of the so-called “death squad dossier” were close to miraculous. Not only are the officers named in the documents now under investigation, but thanks to Peccerelli’s DNA work, the bodies of five of the victims were identified and returned to their families, who had never known what had happened to their loved ones 30 years ago.
In 2009, another source gave Doyle a set of internal military documents about the scorched earth campaign of the early 1980s that were so damning in their details that the source recommended she immediately leave the country. “This person was worried that anybody who had possession of such incendiary documents would be targeted,” Doyle said.
The documents will be used by prosecutors in the trial of Rios Montt. “We have a very strong case,” Doyle says. But the continuing power of the Guatemalan military means the 86-year-old retired general may be able to avoid justice.
I asked her if she ever get discouraged by the enormity of the crimes she investigates.
“I don’t,” she replied. “I”ve met so many beautiful, dedicated people in Guatemala who have been working on this for 30 years that I feel privileged. What Fredy’s group has done with DNA findings is amazing. I’m inspired, not discouraged.”
Working with the families of people who have lost loved ones, she says, “is always painful. But I can bring them information that they’ve never been able to get. That’s mitigates the pain.”
I asked her if she ever gets scared.
“I have received threats,” she says with a rueful laugh. “But I’ve never felt one iota as frightened as my colleagues who have to stay in Guatemala all the time. Pressure and hostility and threats come with the territory” — the territory of the forensic archivist.