A massacre of indigenous protesters in Peru last weekend has resulted in the temporary roll-back of development laws that were passed without proper consultation under international law. They were part of a package of laws issued to comply with a free trade agreement with the US. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the overseas impacts of free trade laws that we routinely hear nothing about.
Peaceful protesters were attacked by police, who killed at least 22 of them, according to their latest count--police claimed just nine. Twenty-three police were killed in return. Democracy Now!reported on the massacre on Tuesday (excerpts on the flip), and Al Jazeera filed this report:
More about the massacre itself, and the legislative response on the flip.
Democracy Now! reported on the massacre itself, as well as the background of the development laws that threaten the indigenous community. Here is the beginning of their report:
AMY GOODMAN: Dozens of people are estimated to have been killed in clashes between police and indigenous activists protesting oil and mining projects in the northern Peruvian Amazonian province of Bagua. Peruvian authorities have declared a military curfew. Troops are patrolling towns in the Amazon jungle. Authorities say up to twenty-two policemen have been killed, and two remain missing. The indigenous community says at least forty people, including three children, were killed by the police this weekend.
On Friday morning, some 600 Peruvian riot police and helicopters attacked a peaceful indigenous blockade outside of Bagua, killing twenty-five and injuring more than 150. Eyewitness accounts indicate the police fired live ammunition and tear gas into the crowd. The images our TV viewers are watching are from an on-the-ground eyewitness to the attack. Our radio listeners can see these images on our website, democracynow.org.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the national indigenous organization, the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, or AIDESEP, accused the government of President Alan Garcia of ordering the, quote, "genocide" of the indigenous communities.
ALBERTO PIZANGO: [translated] Our brothers are cornered. I want to put the responsibility on the government. We are going to put the responsibility on Alan Garcia's government for ordering this genocide. This is genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: Pizango is now in hiding after a judge ordered his arrest Saturday on charges of sedition and for allegedly inciting violence.
Authorities say, following Friday's attack on the indigenous protesters, dozens of policemen were held hostage and several murdered. An injured policeman, Fredegundo Vasquez, said he saw indigenous activists torturing and killing policemen with their spears.
FREDEGUNDO VASQUEZ: [translated] I saw them kill people right in front of me. And they began to hit the rest of us with spears. It's disgraceful. They are just terrible. They said that their brothers died, so we had to die, too.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia defended the police actions and lashed out against the deaths of the policemen. He blamed, quote, "foreign forces" for the violence and spoke of a, quote, "conspiracy" to stop his government from exploiting natural resources.
PRESIDENT ALAN GARCIA: [translated] These death mongers would like the world to denounce hundreds of natives being killed. But what has been found are dozens of police with their throats slit. That's the truth when one talks of the facts of these deaths. And you might ask why they are our police deaths, if they are the one who are armed. The explanation for all of this, you come to understand, is a will for dialogue on the part of these humble policemen, who had no desire to fire their weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: Peruvian President Alan Garcia defending the police actions against indigenous protesters last week. Over the weekend, Garcia, a free trade advocate, said 40,000 natives did not have the right to tell 28 million Peruvians not to come to their lands. Anyone who did so, he warned, would lead Peru into, quote, "irrationality and a backwards primitive state."
Since April, indigenous groups have opposed new laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest by blocking roads, waterways and oil pipelines. President Garcia's government passed these laws under "fast track" authority he had received from the Peruvian congress to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.
Friday's clashes followed a governmental decision to reject congressional attempts to overturn some of the laws.
Independent journalist Henry Pillares interviewed indigenous leader Alberto Pizango last month for the group Amazon Watch.
ALBERTO PIZANGO: [translated] They've said that we indigenous peoples are against the system, but, no, we want development, but from our perspective, development that adheres to legal conventions, such as the United Nations International Labour Organization's Convention 169, that says we, the indigenous peoples, have to be consulted. The government has not consulted us.
Not only am I being persecuted, but I feel that my life is in danger, because I am defending the rights of the peoples, the legitimate rights that the indigenous people have. I feel I am being persecuted, and the situation can get much worse with my criminal prosecution.
LatinAmericanPress.org, is the product of Comunicaciones Aliadas, which describes itself as a non-profit based in Lima, with a focus on rights. Their story, Battle for the Amazon still on by Ramiro Escobar, says, in part:
Peruvian lawmakers voted to suspend two legislative decrees that sought to open up Peru´s Amazon Basin to large investment projects, sparking more than two months´ of protests by indigenous groups in the country´s jungle.
Despite this vote, which came in the wake of deadly clashes between protesters and the police in northern Peru that left dozens killed, a true dialogue with the government is still blocked and protests are continuing.
Peru´s unicameral legislature voted with 57 votes in favor - by the ruling Aprista Party, the center-right National Unity and another bloc of supporters of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori - and 47 against. Nationalist and left-leaning groups who voted against the measure said the decrees should have been completely revoked, not just suspended.
The laws, part of a package of decrees issued by President Alan García, in order to implement the free trade agreement with the United States, infuriated the indigenous groups of Peru´s Amazon Basin. It was the second time in less than a year that following their demonstrations, however, the Congress voted to revoke or suspend García´s decrees to draw investment to their homeland.
The package of nine decrees seeks to increase the area of lands used for farming and limit indigenous peoples´ access to these lands, as well as easing requirements for exploitation of natural resources such as minerals and hydrocarbons under the soil. Under Peruvian law, citizens do not own subsoil resources.
Political failure
The two most controversial of the decrees, particularly 1090, the so-called "Forest Law," sparked massive demonstrations, as indigenous groups in the Amazon Basin complained that it will limit their access to the forests. The other decree, 1064, they say violates communal land rights, by opening up these areas to farming.
These are issues that almost never appear in political debates in the United States, yet they are central to the politics of the countries we trade with. After hearing the initial report on Democracy Now! I felt it would be helpful to bring some of the background directly to Open Left in the words of those much closer to the story than I myself am. I wanted to preserve some feeling of their perspective being much closer to the story. Although this eruption into mass violence is not so common, violence on a personal level is virtually a routine part of "development" under free trade agreements throughout Latin America and much of the rest of the Third World. This is the sort of thing that happens all the time.
