The Peruvian government should seek a dialogue and end the conflict
by the El Reportero’s news services
The Peruvian government must look for the dialogue and finish the conflict Bolzano/Bozen, Göttingen, on August 20, 2008.
The Association for the Threatened Peoples (APA) sent the urgent one appeal to the government of Peru so that it finishes the conflict with People of the Amazons.
In a letter to Peruvian President Alan Garcia and Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo, the APA remarked that government violence against indigenous communities in a desperate struggle to survive and have their rights respected will not come to anything. The APA also communicated that in the next weeks will ask that religious and civil human rights groups embrace the cause of Peruvian indigenous people.
Without any consultation with indigenous populations, the Peruvian government approved 30 new laws that will facilitate the sale of indigenous territories rich in natural resources to transnational corporations, above all, petroleum companies. This violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and also the ILO Convention 169 ratifi ed by Peru in 1994.
As a consequence, thousands of indigenous people affected by the new laws have risen up in desperate protest. Recently, they have rallied at various petroleum and gas extraction sites as well as hydroelectric centers, bridges and highways. The government’s response was to proclaim a state of emergency and invade the four regions involved.
The extraction of petroleum and gas in the Peruvian Amazon has already gravely affected the environment and the health of indigenous populations in these regions. The Camisea project, for example, the largest gas extraction project in Peru’s history, directly affected 8700 people in the Machiguenga area and the Nahua, Nanti and Kirineri communities. Nearly 75 percent of the extraction is concentrated in areas of indigenous populations who are living in voluntary isolation, and nearly 70 percent the Peruvian Amazon, including several natural reserves, has already been divided into petroleum extraction regions.
