Thousands of Peruvian activists have been protesting against a series of laws that will threaten their land's natural resources. The Peruvians protest in a show of solidarity for Amazon tribes, who have been on strike more than month.
Privatization is the heart of the conflict. The tribes object to presidential decrees that have opened up their natural resource sectors to private investors. Sadly, the protests have spiraled into violence, and more than 30 people have died with dozens more injured.
A reader, Luis Andres Sendoya, sent me photos taken by volunteers in Peru of the conflict between the Peruvian government and the Amazon people. The photos can be viewed here, but I must warn readers that they are extremely graphic.
Alan Garcia, the president of Peru, pleads for calm from his countrymen, but what he has not yet acknowledged are the rights of the indigenous Peruvians, which is really what this whole conflict is about.
Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.
These corporate protection treaties hurt working people in the states, and they PREDICTABLY kill impoverished people in the Global South. We have to make this established fact clear whenever these deals come up for discussion.
Whether it's a Republican pushing such treaties or a Democrat (Bill Richardson, Obama) naively or disingenuously claiming that there are decent worker and environmental protections written into the treaties, do not believe a word of it.
Why has the president done this?
What would happen here if a president issued a decree to take land away from the native Americans (reservations)?
In July 2007 I traveled with my daughter in Peru. One day we took a long day trip driving south along the coast
towards Chile. As we got to the outskirts of LIma (the city) and then traveled through Lima (the state) we saw hundreds of makeshift huts in the desert along the road. Many had flag poles and were flying the Peruvian national flag. In my pre-coffee, very early morning state I though how nice, how patriotic. As the day went on and we saw more of the huts with flags in the desert my daughter, who speaks Spanish found the real story.
The huts were inhabited by Peruvian Indians (not ladinos/Spanish descent). They had come from the foothills and mountains of the Andes to take back their land. They flew the Peruvian flag as a sign of protest and to indicate that they are in fact the rightful owners of Peru, above and below the ground. The tradedy of Latin American Indians just keeps getting worse.