Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies

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Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Magda Hassan - 06-06-2009

ALERT: Massacre in Peru Police shooting Amazon Indigenous civilians - 84 people dead

PLEASE TAKE ACTION! Send a letter to Peru government

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[size=12]check video here http://latinamericansolidaritynetwork.org , some part of the massive indigenous demonstrations in Peru from yesterday[/SIZE]

[size=12]send you concerns and protest to:[/SIZE]

[size=12]Email the President of the Congress of Peru Javier Velásquez-Quesquén: jvelasquezq@congreso.gob.pe [/SIZE][size=12]and Peru Embassy in Australia embassy@embaperu.org.au
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[size=12]The government of Peru has ordered for the National Police to attack the Amazonian Indigenous peoples. Civilians were shot from buildings roofs and helicopters.[/SIZE]

[size=12]More than 38 people have died so far at 2:00 PM U.S. Eastern time, including 28 civilians and 10 police men -who are also Indigenous. Hospitals collapsing, fights ongoing. Update[/SIZE][size=12]: now 84 dead peopleat 6:00 PM US Eastern time.[/SIZE]

Indigenous peoples in Peru are in strike for the last 52 days protesting against free trade policies that would allow multinationals to take over their territories. This attack occurred around 5:00 AM this morning, a day after the Congress of Peru decided not to debate one of the most important decrees that allow the sale of Indigenous land. The number of casualities is according to a Twetter sent by a Peruvian journalist who is in the area of Bagua, a city located in the Amazonas region of Peru.

[size=12]At this moment the police is attacking Indians and also the rest of the population in the cities of Bagua Grande and Bagua Chica, in the departmento (region) of Amazonas. There are lots of killings, but the radio only talks about the policemen that have died.

The central argument is this one: how can the government be right in this situation, if the WHOLE POPULATION (indians and not indians) are against the police (and soon the armed forces which is being deployed.

At this moment, though people I know inform directly from the zone, information is confused. I will let you know about what is happening and with clear information soon. Please be in alert. [/SIZE]

[size=12]Servindi Indigenous News in Peru reports that the attacks started at 5:30 AM. and among the dead is a local Indigenous leader who organized the protest. Santiago Manuig Valera is an Awajun-Wampis man and his remains are not yet recovered, as the Police are preventing civilians from doing so.

The director of Policía Nacional del Perú (PNP), José Sánchez said the attacks were a response of violence started by the Indigenous protesters.

Peru’s president Alan Garcia is on national TV right now and has accused the Indigenous leaders of the violence “They want to play a revolution game,” and later on he added that “brave Police forces have fallen in defense of the nation,” and said he might send the military this is just beginning. Peru minister Mauricio Mulder calls indigenous protesters "terrorists". Primer Minister Jose Garcia Belaunde has denied that there were not previous consultations with Indigenous peoples, which is a lie.
Amazonian Indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, of AIDESEP said the government has committed genocide and that they will continue their fight and will rally in cities of Peru.

Photo Peru.com

Peru's police keeps attacking Natives and president Alan Garcia is saying that Venezuela is behind Indigenous protest.

Opposition leftist leader Ollanta Humala has protested and said Alan Garcia is responsible for the violence.

LIMA MEDIA is mostly biased saying "4 brave police men were killed by criminal Natives". El Comercio the biggest newspaper in Peru accuses indigenous peoples of violence "More than 7 police killed responding to Natives attacks"... Blogs in Lima are just awakening to reality of Peru, and some are even blaming the Native peoples. Very few posts on this issue at this time, unfortunately.

Civilians in Bagua are reporting that “this is a genocidal attack, there is violence everywhere” as the violence continues right now. Enlace Nacional has also news.[/SIZE]

[size=12] PLEASE TAKE ACTION[/SIZE]

[size=12]Demand an immediate end of violence!. Please send emails to Alan Garcia, in Spanish here.

Email the President of the Congress of Peru Javier Velásquez-Quesquén: jvelasquezq@congreso.gob.pe[/SIZE]
[size=12]and Peru Embassy in Australia embassy@embaperu.org.au

[/SIZE][size=12]Presidente Alan García
Despacho Presidencial
Jirón de la Unión S/N 1 cda
Lima 1, PERU

El mundo se preocupa por lo que ocurre en Perú y en nombre de los derechos humanos de los pueblos indigenas amazónicos peruanos, les solicito que detengan la violencia contra inocentes ciudadanos que están defendiendo sus territorios y sus vidas.

Por favor respete la vida de los peruanos, esto es un crimen de lesa humanidad que ustedes están promoviendo y en nombre de los tratados de derecho internacional que Perú ha firmado, le exijo que respete la vida de los indigenas amazónicos y suspenda el Estado de Emergencia.

Solicito respetuosamente que ordene el fin de los ataques policiales y que restituya el diálogo respetuoso y honesto con los pueblos indigenas amazónicos de Perú.

Por la vida, por la paz, por la justicia.
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[size=12]Here is another model of letter of Global Response. Please send copies of your letter to:

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[size=12]Yehude Simon Munaro, President of the Council of Ministers
(ysimon@pcm.gob.pe, Fax +51 1- 716- 87-35 )
Rafael Vásquez Rodríguez, President of Congress
(rvasquezr@congreso.gob.pe, Fax +51 1- 311- 77- 03 )
Public Ombudsman Office of Peru
(centrodeatencionvirtual@defensoria.gob.pe)
Peruvian Embassador in your country (for contact details - see http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Peru
UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(indigenous@ohchr.org)
UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
(wgeid@ohchr.org)
UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom expression
(freedex@ohchr.org)
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
(indigenous_un@un.org)
IACHR Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(cidhoea@oas.org)
IACHR Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Expression
(cidh-expresion@oas.org)[/SIZE]

[size=12]Write a letter to President Alan Garcia via the U.S. Embassy in Peru

Please contact the Peruvian embassy in Australia http://www.embaperu.org.au/embassy/contactUs.html[/SIZE] We just called the Peruvian Embassy and they say they are also "concerned" but they want people to email them showing concern: embassy@embaperu.org.au

Protests to continue in Peru

CAOI the Andean Indigenous Organization has made a call for an international trial to Alan Garcia and his cabinet for genocide.

Protests in Lima today: Movilizacion en Lima en protesta por matanzas de indigenas HOY a las 5 PM Plaza Francia hasta Plaza San Martin.

Indigenous leaders call for National Protest on June 11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exjj4RAoszw&feature=player_embedded

Snipers executing people. [Image: bagua012.JPG]

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Magda Hassan - 06-06-2009

Burning the evidence
The post from Red Ucuyali is the necessary translation below. Seems like Twobreakfasts has learned some tricks from Uribe; burn the bodies and say "hey...wasn't that bad y'know"

Feliz Calva Guerrero, reporter for Radio Marañón, says he has seen various dead people with bullet wounds and/or savagely beaten ('massacred' was the term he used) and that the police were burning the bodies.

Marijke Deleu, a Belgian volunteer who has been a supporter of the indigenous strike action since last month, has said that she was in the area called 'El Reposo' when the police offensive began. She said that they started to bomb the protestors from the air and those surrounding them opened fire with machine guns. She said "there was nowhere to run". At 5pm she went back to the El Reposo zone where she saw the bodies of five indigenous. All were very young. One had been shot in the mouth. The police were looking in the surrounding hillsides for more bodies. Up to that moment no fiscal had been to the scene. She has heard from other people that the police are taking the bodies to the El Milagro army barracks to burn them.

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Peter Lemkin - 08-06-2009

Very good coverage in audio and video here!

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Magda Hassan - 13-06-2009

In early June, Peruvian President Alan García, an ally of US President Barack Obama, ordered armored personnel carriers, helicopter gun-ships and hundreds of heavily armed troops to assault and disperse a peaceful, legal protest organized by members of Peru’s Amazonian indigenous communities protesting the entry of foreign multinational mining companies on their traditional homelands. Dozens of Indians were killed or are missing, scores have been injured and arrested and a number of Peruvian police, held hostage by the indigenous protestors were killed in the assault. President García declared martial law in the region in order to enforce his unilateral and unconstitutional fiat granting of mining exploitation rights to foreign companies, which infringed on the integrity of traditional Amazonian indigenous communal lands.
Alan García is no stranger to government-sponsored massacres. In June 1986, he ordered the military to bomb and shell prisons in the capital holding many hundreds of political prisoners protesting prison conditions – resulting in over 400 known victims. Later obscure mass graves revealed dozens more. This notorious massacre took place while García was hosting a gathering of the so-called ‘Socialist’ International in Lima. His political party, APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) a member of the ‘International’, was embarrassed by the public display of its ‘national-socialist’ proclivities, before hundreds of European Social Democrat functionaries. Charged with misappropriation of government funds and leaving office with an inflation rate of almost 8,000% in 1990, he agreed to support Presidential candidate Alberto Fujimori in exchange for amnesty. When Fujimori imposed a dictatorship in 1992, García went into self-imposed exile in Colombia and later, France. He returned in 2001 when the statute of limitations on his corruption charges had expired and Fujimori was forced to resign amidst charges of running death squads and spying on his critics. García won the 2006 Presidential elections in a run-off against the pro-Indian nationalist candidate and former Army officer, Ollanta Humala, thanks to financial and media backing by Lima’s rightwing, ethnic European oligarchs and US overseas ‘AID’ agencies.
Back in power, García left no doubt about his political and economic agenda. In October 2007 he announced his strategy of placing foreign multi-national mining companies at the center of his economic ‘development’ program, while justifying the brutal displacement of small producers from communal lands and indigenous villages in the name of ‘modernization’.
García pushed through congressional legislation in line with the US-promoted ‘Free Trade Agreement of the Americas’ or ALCA. Peru was one of only three Latin American nations to support the US proposal. He opened Peru to the unprecedented plunder of its resources, labor, land and markets by the multinationals. In late 2007, García began to award huge tracts of traditional indigenous lands in the Amazon region for exploitation by foreign mining and energy multinationals. This was in violation of a 1969 International Labor Organization-brokered agreement obligating the Peruvian government to consult and negotiate with the indigenous inhabitants over exploitation of their lands and rivers. Under his ‘open door’ policy, the mining sector of the economy expanded rapidly and made huge profits from the record-high world commodity prices and the growing Asian (Chinese) demand for raw materials.
The multinational corporations were attracted by Peru’s low corporate taxes and royalty payments and virtually free access to water and cheap government-subsidized electricity rates. The enforcement of environmental regulations was suspended in these ecologically fragile regions, leading to wide-spread contamination of the rivers, ground water, air and soil in the surrounding indigenous communities. Poisons from mining operations led to massive fish kills and rendered the water unfit for drinking. The operations decimated the tropical forests, undermining the livelihood of tens of thousands of villagers engaged in traditional artisan work and subsistence forest gathering and agricultural activities.
The profits of the mining bonanza go primarily to the overseas companies. The García regime distributes state revenues to his supporters among the financial and real estate speculators, luxury goods importers and political cronies in Lima’s enclosed upscale, heavily guarded neighborhoods and exclusive country-clubs. As the profit margins of the multinationals reached an incredible 50% and government revenues exceeded $1 billion US dollars, the indigenous communities lacked paved roads, safe water, basic health services and schools. Worse still, they experienced a rapid deterioration of their everyday lives as the influx of mining capital led to increased prices for basic food and medicine. Even the World Bank in its Annual Report for 2008 and the editors of the Financial Times of London urged the García regime to address the growing discontent and crisis among the indigenous communities.
Delegations from the indigenous communities had traveled to Lima to try to establish a dialogue with the President in order to address the degradation of their lands and communities. The delegates were met with closed doors. García maintained that ‘progress and modernity come from the big investments by the multinationals…,(rather than) the poor peasants who haven’t a centavo to invest.’ He interpreted the appeals for peaceful dialogue as a sign of weakness among the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon and increased his grants of exploitation concessions to foreign MNCs even deeper into the Amazon. He cut off virtually all possibility for dialogue and compromise with the Indian communities.
The Amazonian Indian communities responded by forming the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP). They held public protests for over 7 weeks culminating in the blocking of two transnational highways. This enraged García, who referred to the protestors as ‘savages and barbarians’ and sent police and military units to suppress the mass action. What García failed to consider was the fact that a significant proportion of indigenous men in these villages had served as rmy conscripts, who fought in the 1995 war against Ecuador while others had been trained in local self-defense community organizations. These combat veterans were not intimidated by state terror and their resistance to the initial police attacks resulted in both police and Indian casualties. García then declared ‘war on the savages’ sending a heavy military force with helicopters and armored troops with orders to ‘shoot to kill’. AIDESEP activists report over one hundred deaths among the indigenous protestors and their families: Indians were murdered in the streets, in their homes and workplaces. The remains of many victims are believed to have been dumped in the ravines and rivers.
Conclusion
The Obama regime has predictably not issued a single word of concern or protest in the face of one of the worst massacres of Peruvian civilians in this decade – perpetrated by one of America’s closest remaining allies in Latin America. García, taking his talking points from the US Ambassador, accused Venezuela and Bolivia of having instigated the Indian ‘uprising’, quoting a letter of support from Bolivia’s President Evo Morales sent to an intercontinental conference of Indian communities held in Lima in May as ‘proof’. Martial law was declared and the entire Amazon region of Peru is being militarized. Meetings are banned and family members are forbidden from searching for their missing relatives.
Throughout Latin America, all the major Indian organizations have expressed their solidarity with the Peruvian indigenous movements. Within Peru, mass social movements, trade unions and human rights groups have organized a general strike on June 11. Fearing the spread of mass protests, El Commercio, the conservative Lima daily, cautioned García to adopt some conciliatory measures to avoid a generalized urban uprising. A one-day truce was declared on June 10, but the Indian organizations refused to end their blockade of the highways unless the García Government rescinds its illegal land grant decrees.
In the meantime, a strange silence hangs over the White House. Our usually garrulous President Obama, so adept at reciting platitudes about diversity and tolerance and praising peace and justice, cannot find a single phrase in his prepared script condemning the massacre of scores of indigenous inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon. When egregious violations of human rights are committed in Latin America by a US backed client-President following Washington’s formula of ‘free trade’, deregulation of environmental protections and hostility toward anti-imperialist countries (Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador), Obama favors complicity over condemnation.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13955

James Petras is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by James Petras

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - David Guyatt - 19-06-2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8108388.stm

Quote:Peru Congress revokes land laws
Peru's Congress has overturned two controversial land ownership laws that sparked deadly clashes between police and Amazon tribal groups.

At least 34 people were killed in the clashes earlier this month.

The laws were passed under powers Congress had granted President Alan Garcia to implement a free trade agreement with the US.

Tribal groups said they were not consulted and some of Peru's South American neighbours voiced opposition.

Ambassador recalled

Congress passed the revocation measure by 82-12 after a five-hour debate.

The Amazon tribal groups argue the decrees - passed in 2007 and 2008 - open up mineral and mining rights in a way that would threaten their way of life.

The worst of the clashes occurred when police tried to clear roadblocks set up by the groups at Bagua, 1,000km (600 miles) north of Lima.

Peru's Prime Minister Yehude Simon had earlier said the government had to know how to listen.

He said the reversal of policy would not put at risk Peru's free trade agreement with the US but 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".

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Jan Klimkowski - 22-06-2009

Looks like another massacre is brewing:

Quote:6/21/09
Doe Run Peru: Showtime

Workers at Doe Run Peru (DRP) are going on indefinite strike at La Oroya, Peru as of 10pm tonight.

This represents a significant acceleration in the ongoing dispute at the plant which is already closed due to lack of funds. What's happening is, in a nutshell, the workers fed up with the patsy patsy game of negotiation going on between owners Renco (owned by Ira Rennert) the Peruvian government and clients of the smelter (i.e. regional metals miners) and demanding action. They don't want to be laid off for the next 90 days as is the current plan. They want their jobs back.

This isn't a case of protestors stopping industry; au contraire, it's a case of a workers' movement sick to death with the intransigence of the suited brigade and getting busy to force them into a deal. But it also means that the strike could get nasty, as if the protestors get militant and start blocking the main central highway that runs through La Oroya (well, just next to it in fact) there are (according to reports) already anti-riot police on hand to make sure this vital link road is kept open.

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/doe-run-peru-showtime.html

Quote:6/22/09
Doe Run Peru: Peru's main central highway now blocked

As explained on IKN last night, workers at Doe Run Peru, La Oroya are now on indefinite strike. Same people have also blocked the main "carretera central" highway that runs inland from Lima and is an important trunk road for the country's mining activity.

According to reports, police are turning back all traffic before it gets to the site of the block, thus isolating the protest (from view?....nasty feeling in pit of stomach about the near future, anyone?). And although there are 2,900 fed up DRP workers present and on strike the gov't is already spinning the protest as the work of "extremists" in its usual "blame anyone but the culprits" manner.

That same "extremists" argument is also being used to explain the protests today in Cusco that threaten the annual "Inti Raymi" festival that's always popular with foreign tourists. In fact, the protest has been rumbling on for months on end and is all about how local tour guides are under threat from new gov't plans to make the job of tourguiding available to anyone, thus making a mockery of the three to five year studies that current guides went through to get their qualified positions. But hey....free markets always favour quantity over quality....it's progress, ya knowz...

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/doe-run-peru-perus-main-central-highway.html

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Jan Klimkowski - 22-06-2009

More excellent analysis from Inka Kola News:

Quote:Unsurprisingly, the world didn't suddenly go Pachakuti

Quote:http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2008/10/pachakuti.html

on us with the Twobreakfasts mea culpa on Wednesday evening. Just when you think the government of Peru might have learned something about its own people (e.g. can't treat them like slaves any more, can't rob them blind like they could 30 years ago, can't feed them BS propaganda in 21st century) we get the Peruvian Ambassador to the USA coming up with a revisionist history of the Amazonian conflict. And before we look at the crap presented as facts yesterday, it's worth noting that the Peru-US wig right now is none other that failed FinMin Luis Valdivieso, a man who has lived in every other part of the world except Peru for his whole adult life, except for the recent 10 month stint when he was called back to play at FinMin and was about as effective as a chocolate fireguard. Honestly, if you've walked the Inca Trail you'll know more about the issues in question than that guy, birth certificate 'made in Peru' or not.

So on to yesterday's presentation, which you can download and enjoy for yourself (gotta like reading fiction, though) right here.

Quote:http://coa.counciloftheamericas.org/files/AmbValdiviesoPresentation09.pdf

If you move to the paydirt page (slide 26 of 29), you'll read the following (in bold). A few Ottocomments come in between:

Quote:We acknowledge that the DL 1090 was not consulted with the principals of the native communities because it was believed that it was not against but in favor of them.

Oh those silly brown people! They just couldn't see that we're only trying to help them! Somehow they managed to misconstrue that by taking away their rights of consultation and approval on any project earmarked for their region they would be in a stronger position, not a weaker one! They didn't realize that by refusing to grant land ownership to the peoples, towns and communites that had applied for and done all the necessary paperwork years and years ago, and then claiming that land as "common ground" and selling it in underhand deals to oil companies, that this isn't like all the other times they'd been robbed of their natural resources in the last 500 years, this time really is different, folks................

Quote: It is now clear that the interlocutors for the dialogue were not representative and had a hidden political agenda not consistent with the concerns of the native communities.

WTF? There is no "hidden agenda". From the very moment the presidential decree was pushed through under emergency laws (that came to be simply to appease the US FTA) the indigenous communities affected by DL1090 protested. The protests started in July 2008 and only captured headlines when people got killed, but the protest was always representative of everyone in the region. This is total crap.

Quote: There was widespread and concerted misinformation and political interference both domestic (from the nationalist party) and external (particularly from President E. Morales and some ministers from Bolivia and Venezuela) who called for radical measures to destroy the Peruvian development model for the Amazon, to weaken the democracy, and ultimately to bring down the government

Hey guys, I got a great idea! When in trouble, blame Hugo and say it's all Evo's fault. What they saying here, that Evo has more influence over Peruvian affairs than its own President? That in itself is telling testimony of the changes going on in South America, but the fact is that neither Bolivia nor Venezuela interfered in the protests. No financial aid, no food handouts, no nothing. Of course both Venezuela and Bolivia made supportive noises about the Amazonia protest, but then again so did Belgium. And Norway. And Chile, for that matter. But let's not confuse things, eh? Just blame the axis of Evo for all your troubles and retreat into paranoia.

Quote:There was also a miscalculation in believing that there were only natives protesting and not criminal elements ready to create chaos and ignite an armed confrontation.

Incredible. "And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you pesky kids and that dog." Y'see, because WE decide that the protest is illegal and the la (which is now illegal in itself) was just, anyone opposing that must be A CRIMINAL! And we just didnt think the brown people would kick up a fuss.....goddam cottonpickin' miscalculations.

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/perus-paranoid-revisionism.html

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Magda Hassan - 22-06-2009

Twobreakfasts is a reference to Alan Garcia as he is a big fat man.

I love Inkacola's reference to Evo Morales and co as the 'Axis of Evo' Laugh

Government massacres indigenous protesters in Peru for multinational companies - Jan Klimkowski - 23-06-2009

Magda Hassan Wrote:Twobreakfasts is a reference to Alan Garcia as he is a big fat man.

:eating::eating:

Magda Hassan Wrote:I love Inkacola's reference to Evo Morales and co as the 'Axis of Evo'

Axis of Evo is quality. Laugh

In every conceivable sense.