exsquid
06-05-2009, 14:47
At least 30 reported killed in Amazon land protest
By CARLA SALAZAR
Associated Press Writer
Indians protesting oil and gas exploration on their lands battled police in Peru's remote Amazon Friday, with authorities and Indian leaders reporting at least 30 deaths.
The violence broke out before dawn as officers tried to end a road blockade by some 5,000 Indians in an area called Curva del Diablo - or "Devil's Curve" - in the northern province of Utcubamba.
Protest leaders said police opened fire from helicopters with bullets and tear gas, while national police director Jose Sanchez Farfan said Indians attacked officers with firearms. He said they also set fire to government buildings.
Eight police officers were killed by gunfire and five wounded, said Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas.
Indian leader Alberto Pizango said 22 Indians were killed in the clash and he accused the government of "genocide" in attacking what he called a peaceful protest. Another 50 Indians were injured, 14 of them seriously, said Servando Puerta, president of a second indigenous umbrella group for the region.
Indians have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline intermittently since April, demanding Peru's government repeal laws they say make it easier for foreign companies to exploit their lands.
The laws, backed by President Alan Garcia as he implemented the Peru-U.S. free trade pact, open communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging, mining and large-scale farming, Indians say.
Garcia, who wants to ramp up foreign oil investment in the Amazon, accused Pizango on Friday of "falling to a criminal level: assaulting a police post, grabbing arms from police, killing police who are fulfilling their duty."
Pizango denied that protesters killed police.
The government owns the rights to underground resources. A Duke University study published last year said contract blocks for oil and gas exploration cover approximately 72 percent of Peru's rain forest.
Indians say Garcia's government does not consult them in good faith before signing such contracts, which could affect at least 30,000 Amazon Indians across six provinces.
Pizango said last month that Indians would view any government security forces as an "external aggression" and would give their lives to defend the land.
Though he later rescinded what amounted to a declaration of insurgency, it is unclear how much influence Pizango, president of the Peruvian Jungle Inter-Ethnic Development Association, has over Indians in the conflict zone.
Garcia declared a state of emergency May 9 and suspended some constitutional rights in four jungle provinces as a result of the ongoing protests.
Police Violently Attack Peaceful Indigenous Blockade in the Peruvian Amazon
5 June 2009
Four confirmed dead and 18 injured in a pre-dawn attack on peaceful demonstrators
Source: Gregor MacLennan, Amazon Watch
Bagua, Peru (June 5, 2009) - At approximately 5 am this morning, the Peruvian military police 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 northern Peruvian Amazon. Several thousand Awajun and Wambis indigenous peoples were forcibly dispersed by tear gas and real bullets, among them are confirmed reports of at least 18 injured and four people confirmed dead, although the number of dead is likely to be several times higher.
At 2am police began to approach the demonstrators as they were sleeping along the Fernando Belaśnde Terry road. Demonstrators refused to move from the roadblock as helicopters dropped teargas bombs from overhead. Eyewitnesses report that police attacked from both sides firing real bullets into the crowd as people fled into the hills. As the unarmed demonstrators were killed and injured some wrestled the Police and took away their guns and fought back in self-defense resulting in deaths of several Police officers.
In local radio reports, the chief of Police claimed that the indigenous demonstrators were armed with guns necessitating the use of bullets for dispersal. This claim is refuted by dozens of local eyewitnesses including local journalists. Marijke Deleu, a Belgium environmentalist from the local conservation organization reported from the scene that the Amazonian demonstrators have been entirely peaceful and only bear traditional spears and in no way provoked any violence.
The Garcia Government yesterday accused the indigenous movement of turning violent and issued an order for the police to begin forcibly removing indigenous demonstrations that have paralyzed the Amazon region of Peru for nearly two months.
Gregor MacLennan of Amazon Watch who is currently in Peru stated: “It is outrageous and absolutely untrue that indigenous peoples provoked violence. Rather, they are engaged in peaceful and non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. It has been the Peruvian Government forces who have provoked violence against peaceful people who are trying to protect their forests, their sacred lands from shortsighted pollution and industrial development. They are sacrificing a lot to safeguard the Amazon for future generations and for all Peruvians.”
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.
In the past two weeks, the constitutional committee of Congress has ruled that legislative decree 994 and 1090 were unconstitutional. The Peruvian Congress was scheduled to debate the revocation of decree 1090 again yesterday, however, Garcia’s political party once again prevented the debate. The government Ombudsman office has filed a demand with the constitutional tribunal on the unconstitutionality of decree 1064, which affects the land rights laws in Peru.
The protests have provoked national debate about government policies in the Amazon that ignore indigenous peoples and encourage large-scale extractive industries and the privatization of Amazonian lands. Indigenous peoples claim that new laws undermine their rights and open up their ancestral lands to private companies for mining, logging, plantations and oil drilling.
A coalition of human rights and environmental organizations are urging the Garcia Government to step down and cease violent confrontations by the military and calling for solidarity demonstrations at Peruvian Embassies around the world.
AIDESEP, the national indigenous organization of Peru has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11th.
For Background information see www.amazonwatch.org or www.aidesep.org.pe.
This really pisses me off because what these two articles fail to say is that the demonstrators shot the policia with arrows, stabbed them w/ spears, and beat some officers to death with rocks. One officers was a former student & friend of some current students. Man I hate the MSM.
x/S
By CARLA SALAZAR
Associated Press Writer
Indians protesting oil and gas exploration on their lands battled police in Peru's remote Amazon Friday, with authorities and Indian leaders reporting at least 30 deaths.
The violence broke out before dawn as officers tried to end a road blockade by some 5,000 Indians in an area called Curva del Diablo - or "Devil's Curve" - in the northern province of Utcubamba.
Protest leaders said police opened fire from helicopters with bullets and tear gas, while national police director Jose Sanchez Farfan said Indians attacked officers with firearms. He said they also set fire to government buildings.
Eight police officers were killed by gunfire and five wounded, said Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas.
Indian leader Alberto Pizango said 22 Indians were killed in the clash and he accused the government of "genocide" in attacking what he called a peaceful protest. Another 50 Indians were injured, 14 of them seriously, said Servando Puerta, president of a second indigenous umbrella group for the region.
Indians have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline intermittently since April, demanding Peru's government repeal laws they say make it easier for foreign companies to exploit their lands.
The laws, backed by President Alan Garcia as he implemented the Peru-U.S. free trade pact, open communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging, mining and large-scale farming, Indians say.
Garcia, who wants to ramp up foreign oil investment in the Amazon, accused Pizango on Friday of "falling to a criminal level: assaulting a police post, grabbing arms from police, killing police who are fulfilling their duty."
Pizango denied that protesters killed police.
The government owns the rights to underground resources. A Duke University study published last year said contract blocks for oil and gas exploration cover approximately 72 percent of Peru's rain forest.
Indians say Garcia's government does not consult them in good faith before signing such contracts, which could affect at least 30,000 Amazon Indians across six provinces.
Pizango said last month that Indians would view any government security forces as an "external aggression" and would give their lives to defend the land.
Though he later rescinded what amounted to a declaration of insurgency, it is unclear how much influence Pizango, president of the Peruvian Jungle Inter-Ethnic Development Association, has over Indians in the conflict zone.
Garcia declared a state of emergency May 9 and suspended some constitutional rights in four jungle provinces as a result of the ongoing protests.
Police Violently Attack Peaceful Indigenous Blockade in the Peruvian Amazon
5 June 2009
Four confirmed dead and 18 injured in a pre-dawn attack on peaceful demonstrators
Source: Gregor MacLennan, Amazon Watch
Bagua, Peru (June 5, 2009) - At approximately 5 am this morning, the Peruvian military police 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 northern Peruvian Amazon. Several thousand Awajun and Wambis indigenous peoples were forcibly dispersed by tear gas and real bullets, among them are confirmed reports of at least 18 injured and four people confirmed dead, although the number of dead is likely to be several times higher.
At 2am police began to approach the demonstrators as they were sleeping along the Fernando Belaśnde Terry road. Demonstrators refused to move from the roadblock as helicopters dropped teargas bombs from overhead. Eyewitnesses report that police attacked from both sides firing real bullets into the crowd as people fled into the hills. As the unarmed demonstrators were killed and injured some wrestled the Police and took away their guns and fought back in self-defense resulting in deaths of several Police officers.
In local radio reports, the chief of Police claimed that the indigenous demonstrators were armed with guns necessitating the use of bullets for dispersal. This claim is refuted by dozens of local eyewitnesses including local journalists. Marijke Deleu, a Belgium environmentalist from the local conservation organization reported from the scene that the Amazonian demonstrators have been entirely peaceful and only bear traditional spears and in no way provoked any violence.
The Garcia Government yesterday accused the indigenous movement of turning violent and issued an order for the police to begin forcibly removing indigenous demonstrations that have paralyzed the Amazon region of Peru for nearly two months.
Gregor MacLennan of Amazon Watch who is currently in Peru stated: “It is outrageous and absolutely untrue that indigenous peoples provoked violence. Rather, they are engaged in peaceful and non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. It has been the Peruvian Government forces who have provoked violence against peaceful people who are trying to protect their forests, their sacred lands from shortsighted pollution and industrial development. They are sacrificing a lot to safeguard the Amazon for future generations and for all Peruvians.”
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.
In the past two weeks, the constitutional committee of Congress has ruled that legislative decree 994 and 1090 were unconstitutional. The Peruvian Congress was scheduled to debate the revocation of decree 1090 again yesterday, however, Garcia’s political party once again prevented the debate. The government Ombudsman office has filed a demand with the constitutional tribunal on the unconstitutionality of decree 1064, which affects the land rights laws in Peru.
The protests have provoked national debate about government policies in the Amazon that ignore indigenous peoples and encourage large-scale extractive industries and the privatization of Amazonian lands. Indigenous peoples claim that new laws undermine their rights and open up their ancestral lands to private companies for mining, logging, plantations and oil drilling.
A coalition of human rights and environmental organizations are urging the Garcia Government to step down and cease violent confrontations by the military and calling for solidarity demonstrations at Peruvian Embassies around the world.
AIDESEP, the national indigenous organization of Peru has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11th.
For Background information see www.amazonwatch.org or www.aidesep.org.pe.
This really pisses me off because what these two articles fail to say is that the demonstrators shot the policia with arrows, stabbed them w/ spears, and beat some officers to death with rocks. One officers was a former student & friend of some current students. Man I hate the MSM.
x/S