From: Socialist Workers Party
News Link: http://www.swp.ie/index.php?page=217&dept=News
Hildebrando Castro-Pozo Chávez - Assessor of the Group of Peru Rural Mayor offices
2,722,000 million square miles of tropical rainforest, with the world’s highest level of biodiversity, is of crucial importance to the environment. It has been described as the “lung of our planet” because its vegetation continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.
About 20% of earth’s oxygen is produced by Amazon rainforest. The Amazon rainforest and is home to an incredible variety of wildlife and this great diversity is mostly distributed between two countries: Brazil and Peru, countries that apart from sharing the Amazon rainforest, both have world’s high rates of differences between rich and poor and in Peru this poverty is mostly in rural zones and in the rainforest.
Bagua and the Amazon crisis, 6th June, 2009:
The Peruvian Amazon people were not consulted at all by the Peruvian Government as International Labour Organization’s agreement about Indigenous people explicitly requires. This could be the short explanation for the complex causes of 34 deaths from a vicious confrontation between Peruvian police and Indigenous people, with a previous declaration of emergency state and “toque de queda”, and a successive restriction of constitutional rights for the people in the area.
This situation started in 2008, months before the end of George Bush's US presidency, and Free Trade Agreement or Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) of Peru and USA was being promoted from both the white house and from Government Palace Lima, Peru.
Peruvian legislation needed to get adjustments or change to fulfil the requirements of the TLC, therefore—to get some time—Chief Executive asked the Parliament to get legislation facilitating themselves to fulfil the exigent requirements of TLC.
The different parliamentary political parties didn’t put up resistance, nobody wanted to be seen as responsible for blocking the “Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC)” with the USA, which had been offered as the best opportunity of development for Peru in its all history.
After this transfer of powers to the Chief Executive, there were issued more than 100 legislative decrees, some of them having the objective to dispose of peasant and native communities land, and other ones to provide the mechanism of concession the forestry zones (including the rain forest of The Amazon).
However, while the Chief Executive was enacting these new legislation, they failed to implement the provision No. 169 (article 6) of International Work Organization treaty. The treaty required prior consultation with the affected community on these projected regulations that would affect them.
In a democracy, parliaments are supposed to discuss projected laws developed by them, but in this case, because the laws were brought forward by the Chief Executive, they lacked this relevant (and legally necessary) step. As a result, they were criticised as being against international agreements and arbitrary.
The indigenous communities rose up in protest immediately, different governmental and non governmental organizations supported them, most of them against this TLC with USA, so the government gave them another reason more eloquent to be against.
The government answer was hard and pointed: Who is against this, is Peru’s enemy because they oppose development through the TLC, they are people who manipulate the natives, because they don’t want the natives to progress, and because they receive international co-operations, etc.
The President of the Republic of Peru referred to them as second class citizens, the Interior minister said that this population shouldn’t take advantage of their conditions of feathers wearing to ask for more rights than others, and some pro-TLC journalists recommended using NAPALM against the natives. The truth is that these projected laws were unconstitutional, therefore there was a demand over the constitutional Tribune, but the parliament decided to suspend these norms for 90 days. What a laugh! They should have derogated the laws.
One of the main motorways taken by the natives became a boiling point in Bagua, a village in the north of the Peruvian rainforest. 500 policemen arrived to clear the motorways, the police commanders forgot that natives could have got guns because the army have been training soldiers in the rainforest, also, that it could be risky to start the fire when just near there another group of natives had kidnapped another group of policemen.
The result: A confrontation in the motorway where 13 police men died and 11 natives, and for the prisoners of the others 10 policemen were killed by revenge. In a few days the government stepped back and the president recognized his mistakes and asked for the derogation of these project of laws to the Parliament, all the political parties approved the derogation, except one party (right conservative).
It is difficult to assess the a balance following this confrontation. The government and the “right” parties want to approve new laws with the same content or meaning, but now consulting the indigenous population. They don’t see that the natives look for a harmonic and sustainable development and per se, they don’t want mine exploitation or massive tala in the place promoted by business groups, behind both “right” parties and media promoting TLC with USA.