Alliance for Responsible Trade

Peru Blog June 8, 2009

Last week I returned to Washington DC from Puno, Peru where over 6000 representatives of indigenous peoples and 500 international observers gathered for the 5-day IV Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples. In Puno, I had the privilege of meeting with representatives of Peru’s indigenous peoples who have sustained peaceful protests for nearly two months in response to the U.S.-Peru FTA implementation law which violates indigenous rights and territories. Just days after the Summit, in a shocking act of aggression, Government forces opened fire on peaceful indigenous protestors, killing as many as 60 in the Peruvian Amazon.

A central focus of the Summit in Puno was the unprecedented global economic crisis and the climate change crisis that the current economic system has produced. Indigenous communities stressed the need to mount active resistance to safeguard remaining territories and natural resources from an economic system that aggressively pushes neocolonial policies to assure transnational corporations unfettered access to profits. In light of the global economic crisis, Summit participants warned that the dominant system will reassert itself by relying more and more on military force and violence.

In contrast to the dominant system, the indigenous peoples of the continent offer an alternative, life-supporting paradigm based on indigenous spirituality and lifeways rooted in profound respect for the earth and collective well-being rather than accumulation of wealth and commodification of natural resources.

The Summit took place in the context of mounting tensions between the Government of Peru and the indigenous peoples of Peru’s Amazon. For two months, over 30,000 indigenous have sustained nonviolent protests along the roads and waterways of Peru’s Amazon. Protests are in response to a series of Presidential decrees issued under the U.S.-Peru FTA implementation law that violate indigenous rights and open the way for an unprecedented expansion of new transnational petroleum, mining, logging and mono-cropping in the Amazon rainforest.

Alberto Pizango, leader of AIDESEP (The Association of Indigenous Amazonians in Peru) addressed the Summit calling for a national strike in solidarity with the struggle in the Amazon. The assembly at the Summit erupted into applause and upped the ask, calling for a widespread nonviolent, national uprising.

Just two days after my return from this historic gathering with these courageous people, I woke to news that 600 Peruvian police had opened fire on thousands of peaceful indigenous protesters blocking a road near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon. Police are accused of burning indigenous bodies, throwing them in the river and removing wounded from the hospital to hide the real number of casualties.

I remembered the words of Alberto Pizango as he addressed the Summit Assembly, saying that the people would die for the land if they had to. I remembered the words of an AIDESEP leader I interviewed clearly stating that this struggle was in response the corporate grab for land and natural resources afforded by the US-Peru FTA. I heard the words of indigenous leaders from the Amazon in the aftermath of the attacks describing the violence as an act of genocide.

I am deeply saddened and outraged that once again U.S. “treaties” are resulting in the killing of innocent indigenous peoples attempting to care for the land of which they are a part. I realize that the Peruvian government waited until international observers to the Summit left the country to mount their attack.

We must let the Governments of the U.S. and Peru know that the whole world is watching!

Click here to send a messge to President Obama, Sec. Clinton and USTR Kirk.

This week, while the Government of Peru is repressing peaceful indigenous protestors in the Amazon, it will also be sending officials to Washington DC to meet with USTR Kirk regarding US-PERU FTA implementation. Please send a message to our government that we stand with the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon and reject the killing and destruction which current U.S. free trade policies promote.