Peru: Police, Indigenous Indians Clash in Protests Over Resources


Up to 20 people are thought to have died in the Peruvian Amazon during clashes between police and indigenous Indians protesting against oil and gas exploration on ancestral lands.

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Previous protests against exploration of ancestral lands have ended in violence [EPA]

Indigenous leaders told AP news agency that 15 protesters had been killed in the unrest, while officials told local radio that five police officers died.

The confrontation apparently began before dawn on Friday in Bagua in the rainforest where companies want to develop oil and natural gas projects, media reports said.

Jose Sanchez Farfan, Peru's national police director, told Reuters news agency that officials were attacked by people with guns when they tried to clear a highway blocked by protesters.

However, protesters told Reuters that police had opened fire on them from helicopters.

Rights group Amazon Watch on Monday condemned what it described as a "violent raid" by police, saying witness reports indicated the unarmed demonstrators were attacked by police while sleeping alongside a road.

It also said some wrestled guns off police officers and fought back "in self defense".

The toll is expected to climb in the latest incident, thought to be the most violent so far, as dozens of people were reported injured.

"I hold the government of [Peruvian] President Alan Garcia responsible for ordering the genocide," indigenous leader Alberto Pizango told journalists in Peru's capital, Lima, on Friday.

Protesters 'insurgency'

Demonstrations erupted in Peru's native communities in response to government moves to open the region to oil exploration and development by foreign companies under a set of measures that Garcia signed in 2007 and 2008.

The government on May 8 declared a 60-day state of emergency in areas of the Amazon, suspending constitutional guarantees in an attempt to suppress the protests, which have targeted airports, bridges and river traffic.

Protesters from a movement of 65 indigenous groups had declared an "insurgency" against the government for refusing to repeal the laws that threaten their ancestral land and resources. They later withdrew their decision.

The indigenous groups were backed by the International Federation of Human Rights, which groups 155 human rights organizations from around the world.

It called on Peru to rescind the decrees because of the government's failure to consult indigenous peoples.

Government officials acknowledge that the country's indigenous groups have historically been marginalized, but insist that Peru's constitution makes the state the owner of the country's mineral wealth.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/20096516561168631.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGS-GspCmfw

[ul]Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in Peru.

The Indians have been protesting against laws which will open up communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging and mining.

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from Bagua Grande in Peru.

In praise of ... Alberto Pizango


Editorial The Guardian, Wednesday 10 June 2009

For the last two months, the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon have been protesting peacefully against the destruction of their lands. An Indian uprising has seen rivers blockaded to prevent oil companies sending barges into the forest in the hope of overturning a new law that lets rip the exploitation of the Amazon forests by loggers, miners, biofuel farmers and oil men. Peru's president, Alan Garcia, is determined to parcel up the forest into blocks for commercial use, encouraged by a free trade deal with America signed three years ago.

More than 70% of the forest has been allocated for oil exploration and the consequences for the Amazonian ecosystem, and the people who co-exist with it, have been dire. The protests turned bloody last Friday when clashes with the army and police, as they tried to clear a roadblock, left at least 30 people dead and perhaps many more.

The Indian spokesman, Alberto Pizango, who heads a human rights organisation that brings together Amazonian Indian interests from across the country and which has long fought peacefully to protect the forests, has been charged with sedition. Yesterday he sought asylum at the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima. Meanwhile the protests go on. Several of the oil companies involved in Peru have links with Britain, including Perenco - an Anglo-French company with an oil project in the northern Amazon, on land that the campaigning group Survival International says is home to at least two remote forest tribes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/10/editorial-amazon-destruction-alberto-pizango

Nicaragua grants asylum to wanted Indian leader
Posted 8 hours 42 minutes ago

Nicaragua has granted political asylum to a wanted Amazon Indian leader, days after violent clashes over land rights left at least 34 dead in Peru, Nicaragua's ambassador to Peru said in a radio interview.

Alberto Pizango had taken refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima after demonstrations in northern Peru against President Alan Garcia's plans to ease restrictions on mining, oil drilling, logging and farming in the Amazon region erupted into violence on Friday and Saturday.

Nicaragua believed there were suitable conditions to grant Mr Pizango - who is wanted on charges of sedition, conspiracy and rebellion - political asylum, Ambassador Tomas Borge told Managua's pro-government Radio Ya.

Mr Pizango "is involved in a political situation of violence, protest, (and) struggle for supposed or real claims, and, as a result, we consider him to be a victim of political persecution," added the ambassador, currently in Managua.

Mr Pizango was waiting in the embassy for authorisation from Peru to travel to Nicaragua, Mr Borge added.

Nicaragua's Sandinista government had not known that Mr Pizango would seek refuge at their embassy, but he was received for humanitarian reasons and solidarity, Mr Borge said.

Amazon Indians have been protesting for nearly a year against two decrees that Peru's president signed in 2007 and 2008 opening jungle areas they consider ancestral lands to drilling for oil and timber.

- AFP


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2593795.htm?section=world

| 9 June, 2009 [ 12:41 ]

Peru: Protesters against Pizango's asylum hit a photographer


LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Almost one hundred people protested this morning in front of the Embassy of Nicaragua in Lima, where Alberto Pizango, the native leader, has taken refuge.

The protesters, who claimed to have come spontaneously from various districts of Lima, were yelling "This is not asylum, this is complicity" and "Listen Nicaragua, return us the murderer."

However, reporters from La Republica detected the odd presence of three buses carrying protesters in a very organized way; as soon as they started taking pictures and writing down the buses license numbers, a group of protesters hit them and tried to steal their cameras and equipments.

Journalists from several local media tried to communicate with Pizango or with any a diplomatic representative in the diplomatic legation, since the Ambassador, Tomas Borge, is absent, but but their calls went without response.

http://www.livinginperu.com/news-9299-law-order-peru-protesters-against-pizangos-asylum-hit-photographer

Peruvians march against Garcia's policies
Wed Jul 9, 2008 7:51pm


By Jean Luis Arce

LIMA (Reuters) - Thousands of Peruvians protested on Wednesday to denounce President Alan Garcia's free-market policies, which they say have failed to benefit the poor during six years of booming economic growth.

Protesters waving red banners put up road blocks on highways in regions including Ica, Puno and Cuzco, snarling traffic and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru's top tourist destination, police and local radio reported.

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/threadimages/Peru_9_June_09_protest1.jpg
Protesters hold banners and flags, one showing an image of Che Guevara, during a national strike in Lima July 9, 2008. Peruvian farmers angry at President Alan Garcia's free-trade policies began a two-day strike on Tuesday, snarling traffic in the country's interior and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu.

REUTERS/Mariana Bazo

Marchers in Lima, the capital, carried signs urging Garcia to quit and calling him "right-wing" and a "traitor."

The rallies, which coincided with a two-day farmers' strike that started on Tuesday, were the latest in a series of protests held to demand the government do more to spread the Andean country's new wealth to workers and the poor. Investors worry a high national poverty rate of 40 percent could pave the way for a leftist leader to win the presidency in 2011 and reverse the pro-business programs of Garcia.

"This is a government of the rich and of multinational corporations," said Mario Huaman, the leader of Peru's largest labour confederation. "The economic model must change ... people need higher wages."

Unions called the one-day general strike that included transportation, construction and energy workers in cities across Peru. Employees of public hospitals, teachers at public universities, and students also joined rallies.

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/threadimages/Peru_9_June_09_protest2.jpg
Construction workers rest after a march during a national strike in Lima July 9, 2008. Peruvian farmers angry at President Alan Garcia's free-trade policies began a two-day strike on Tuesday, snarling traffic in the country's interior and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu.

REUTERS/Mariana Bazo

Unions said the strike was a success, but Labour Minister Mario Pasco said 93 percent of employees reported for work nationwide.

'NOT ENOUGH TO LIVE ON'

Left-wing parties have supported the walkout, and the ultranationalist leader Ollanta Humala, who nearly won the presidency in 2006 and is considering running for office again, has backed the strike.

Garcia, whose approval rate hovers near 30 percent, has said free trade will help lift incomes. The poverty rate has fallen since he took office two years ago, but it remains stubbornly high in rural areas at 65 percent, three times the rate in Lima.

The president has said protests could frighten foreign investors, who he believes have helped turn Peru into one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It grew 9 percent last year.

The main federation of mining unions, which was on strike last week, did not ask its member mines to join the one-day protest on Wednesday, federation leader Luis Castillo said.

Still, some two hundred miners from Peru's third-largest copper mine, Freeport-McMoRan's Cerro Verde, marched in Lima, union leader Leoncio Amudio said. Workers at the mine plan to hold a separate strike on July 16.

Mining is the backbone of Peru's economy, which has been benefiting from high prices for exported metals.

Farmers say they are frustrated by the rising cost of living, want debt relief and say a free-trade deal under way with the United States will flood local markets with imports of subsidized U.S. agricultural goods.

They are also upset at a recent law that will make it easier for foreign investors to buy land in Peru's interior.

One protester who crowded into the city's centre, strapped himself to a large wooden cross to demand more than the $196 he earns each month.

"I've crucified myself because Alan Garcia has not fulfilled his promises to give us full labour benefits," said Miguel Armas, a nurse's assistant at a public hospital. "The minimum wage is not enough to live on."

(Reporting by Marco Aquino, Teresa Cespedes, and Dana Ford; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Dana Ford and Jackie Frank)


http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/threadimages/Peru_9_June_09_protest3.jpg
A protester holds an Inca empire flag at "2 de Mayo" square during a national strike in Lima, July 9, 2008. Peruvian farmers angry at President Alan Garcia's free-trade policies began a two-day strike on Tuesday, snarling traffic in the country's interior and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu.

REUTERS/Mariana Bazo

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0939633020080709

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]Published on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 by Rabble
Peru: Battle Lines Drawn over the Amazon
by Ben Powless


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The rhetoric was sharp enough to cut down Amazonian hardwoods. Yesterday, Sunday June 7th, after a number of ministers had been paraded out Saturday and the day before, Peru's el Señor Presidente, Alan Garcia decided to make it personal. After a joint police-military operation aimed at stopping an Indigenous protest had gone awry, leaving many dead on both sides, Garcia declared the Indigenous elements to be standing in the way of progress, in the path of national development, wrenches in the gears of modernity, and part of an international conspiracy to keep Peru down. In a troubling statement on the resemblance of the Indigenous protestors to the infamous Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) armed insurrection, Garcia seemed to imply the Natives were a band of terrorists as he stood in front of hundreds of military officers in a nationally televised speech. He continued to decry the Indian barbarity and savagery, and called for all police and military to stand against savagery.

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Police arrive with heavy reinforcements to forcefully remove demonstrators PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

Clearly, the battle lines were being drawn. Garcia demonstrated he is not about to allow anything to get in the way of "our development" of the oil and mineral resources the Amazon has to offer. Especially by a bunch of confused savages (his words) who are pawns to the international market and to Indian elites and therefore have no real reason to be resisting. At this point, it was obvious he thought nothing of the Indigenous cause, and what they actually stood for. There is too much money to be extracted from oil, from minerals, from logging, and from possible agriculture in the Amazon region, the 2nd largest stretch outside of Brazil. All on land with less than 200,000 Indigenous people. All now supposed to be open for business, as a result of a series of laws passed under the auspices of Free Trade Agreements signed with both Canada and the United States.

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Indigenous protestors confront the police on the highway outside Bagua PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

All those who lost their lives - certainly more than the 30 or so officially cited - have in the end given their lives for these free trade agreements and their domestic implementation. After wresting a concession from Congress - a la Bush - Garcia was able to push through 99 changes to the law of Peru. A number of these were ruled unconstitutional later, one dealing with property law standing out. Indigenous groups disputed from the beginning that these laws threatened the integrity of the Amazon, its cultural and biological diversity. Since the beginning, they were ignored. Living up to their Amazonian warrior mythology, they decided to take action.

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Police clearly seen with heavy weaponry not fit for use against civilians PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

Protests have lasted now over 50 days, only recently erupting into bloodshed when Garcia suspended civil liberties, declared a state of emergency, and decided to send in the military to end the dispute. This was all done in the name of Garcia's idea of ‘democracy,' which should be farcical to anyone who has the least idea what democracy means. Indigenous groups have maintained they want to be included in this so-called democracy, meaning they have a say over what happens in their lands, and that their rights be respected. This is clearly within international law now, after the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved two years ago.

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Police take away so called Indigenous 'terrorist' PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

The Declaration lays out provisions that clearly establish the rights to free, prior and informed consent over development projects in Indigenous territories, and the right to be involved in any decision making processes that would impact on Indigenous Peoples' lands, resources or rights. Repeated demands have called for there to be dialogue with Indigenous groups. Garcia's response? Yes, there has been dialogue - within the government, by elected officials. Obviously, this hasn't done enough to safeguard the rights, the lives, and the livelihoods of Amazon peoples, and a number of the new laws have been shown to be unconstitutional. Indigenous leaders quickly condemned the tragic loss of lives as the fault of the government, who was not committed to dialogue, but arms. Even the ex-president has placed the blame on Garcia for not seeking dialogue with Indigenous representatives.

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Protestors - including many non-Indigenous - attend to a protestor who was shot PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

Lamentably, this whole situation could have easily been prevented, had the government cared enough about its own citizens' lives and effective dialogue more than getting its own way. Instead, on Friday morning, police and military descended on an Indigenous encampment near the Amazonian towns of Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande. Reports from the ground contradict the government version, in which security forces, reluctant to use force, were ambushed and had to defend themselves with bombs, helicopters, and machine guns. Other reports establish that a private meeting was held between the military, the Indigenous leadership, and a local bishop, among others, the night before the violence. Indigenous groups were reportedly given until 10am to make a decision to leave or stay, and were guaranteed that nothing would happen until then. In response, many decided to go home. But the government apparently lied. The operation started around 6am.

Local sources instead claim they were sleeping, unarmed, when bullets were fired in their direction. When the police finally arrived to physically remove protestors, it was then that many police were disarmed, killed, or taken prisoner by the masses of protestors, probably numbering over 2,000 in days prior, now down to a few hundred. By now, the war had been declared, and wouldn't stop well into the night as police and military continued in a violent sweep, ending up going into the towns and reportedly searching house by house in vengeance. Police entered with weapons of war against civilians. Now the military has been reported to be wearing civilian clothing to carry out what seems more and more to resemble a civil war. Families decry that they haven't been allowed to enter the areas to search for missing family, or enter jails to visit and feed prisoners. All this done in a declared state of emergency, with many liberties and human rights withdrawn for local citizens.


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Protestors re-converge near the split in the highway outside of Bagua PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

Then came the outrage. But not by locals or Indigenous groups, though that was palpable. By the very same government who initiated the action. Their reports came out throughout the next day - a dozen security forces murdered in cold blood, maybe 3 Indians hurt. Now 24 police and military cruelly assassinated, about 9 Indians dead (no information how). The choice of words is translated from government pronouncements, and reflects their dim view of Indigenous deaths, despite many being civilians, with a few children among those murdered.

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Battle continues in Bagua town PHOTO: AIDESEP

On the other side, Indigenous groups reported at least 30 civilians and Natives were killed, but also that government officials had gone through lengths to disappear some of the bodies, a claim documented by Amazon Watch (see link below). Some AIDESEP members in the communities dispute that the number is much higher, closer to 100, including peasants and civilians. Video evidence clearly shows Natives armed only with spears against a tactical unit in one confrontation, and photos show police firing live weapons from the roofs, reportedly into crowds gathered below. A national newspaper even reported that one could clearly find pictures of more than a dozen Natives and civilians dead, online. No matter, the numbers had suddenly taken on a new importance.

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Police seen shooting on crowds below in Bagua PHOTO: AIDESEP

This had been the worst episode of violence since the 90's, so one might think the government might want to cut its losses and signal a shift towards more productive measures. Indeed, both sides could claim that they lost a number of lives, impetus to stop the bloodshed. Except that the war had already been declared, and may only be heating up. Hence the president's fiery rhetoric, about how dare the savage Indians hurt our humble police, who didn't want to raise their weapons. With their claim of nearly 30 deaths to the Indians' 9 pushed them to call it a massacre (matanza, masacre) and seemed to pave the ethical and emotional road towards stronger retaliation, as all news channels were flooded with pictures of the soldiers bodies being flown out. The president of the ministers' congress today appeared before congress and on national television to decry all the foreign news reports that fail to coincide with official numbers. Not only that, of course, these Natives were getting in the way of our development, of our modernity, denying us our basic human rights. Many of these government claims are thin disguises to misrepresent the Indigenous movement and its positions.

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Civilians with bullet wounds attended in Bagua hospital PHOTO: AIDESEP

Take the issue of development. Indigenous communities have repeatedly said they aren't against development, but it has to be a different kind of development, one more responsible. A reasonable claim, especially considering that the loss of the Amazon rainforest is one of the top drivers of climate change. On the issue of leadership and responsibility, the government has maintained that this was a top-down movement led by Alberto Pizango, president of AIDESEP, the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, an Indigenous organization with representation from Amazon communities. This flies in the face of the history of the protest, which has literally involved thousands of communities, and shown itself to be led by local communities in their own decision making structures. The government has instead tried to pin the blame on Pizango as the main instigator, as a political agent of other parties or perhaps other countries, and a criminal mastermind who has tricked his followers into rallying against perfectly good legislation. They have gone so far as to issue a warrant for his arrest now, with many news reports hinting he has fled to Bolivia, and the Indigenous leadership have lost contact with him.

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Alberto Pizango addresses a crowd of thousands of Indigenous Peoples in Puno, Peru days before the violent outbreak PHOTO: Ben Powless

The other easily disputed claim is that this is an Indigenous movement uniquely, the implication being that this does not apply to anyone non-Indigenous, and others should repudiate the movement. It is well known in and around the Amazonian towns, however, that there have consistently been Mestizos, those of mixed race who make a slim majority of Peruvians, as part of the movement. In recent days reportedly a number of disenfranchised army reservists also decided to join the Indigenous cause. Looking at the protests in and around Bagua, it can clearly be seen that as many as half the protestors were not Indigenous, but were there in support. Also in the past, it has been a number of labour unions and farmer groups that have participated in national strikes, concerned over the same free trade agreements as Amazon communities. The implications here are critical, though, and seem to seek a precedent in declaring the Indigenous movement to be a criminal, or even terrorist, movement and outlaw their activities, organizations, and politics.

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Member of CONACAMI - the Mining-Impacted Communities Association, at a protest in Puno, Peru days before PHOTO: Ben Powless

What comes next? On the Indigenous side, there have been calls for a national strike on Thursday, the 11th. In this case, many labour groups have been involved from the beginning, so it remains to be seen whether this will go farther than strikes in the past, which have shut down vital transportation and oil infrastructure, as well as Machu Picchu, the main tourist destination of Peru. Indigenous leaders have said, however, their protest will continue until they are able to renegotiate the controversial laws. On the government side, we can only wait and hope for the best. If the inflamed words and rallying of the troops are any indication, however, they may be getting ready to try and strike down harder on the Indigenous movement sooner rather than later. Reports have come in that Special Forces have been seen in the area. All this may spell out more bloodshed in the name of democracy. However, they are also acutely aware they are under the international microscope right now, despite the lack of substantial media reporting about the situation here in Peru.

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Indigenous leaders of the Peruvian Amazon hold a press conference to talk about the whereabouts of Pizango and their reaction to the violent outbreak, Saturday June 6th. PHOTO: Ben Powless

And that may be where hope rests. This is a critical moment, as the government plans its next steps. There needs to be a strong international focus on Peru, to let them know they cannot get away with more human rights abuses. Already, protests are planned across the United States, with more in planning in Canada. Letters have been sent to the government and to representatives at embassies around the world. AIDESEP has called for a national inquiry into the events of Bagua and the deaths. They have also issued a request for an international observer committee to come and be witnesses to the situation. A national strike is planned for this Thursday, with participation from diverse groups, calling for resolution to the situation and the resignation of Alan Garcia. AIDESEP is also collecting funds to aid in its work and support observers to get into the region.

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Thousands of Indigenous Peoples from across the Americas gather in Puno, Peru for the 4th Continental Indigenous Summit of Abya Yala (America) PHOTO: Ben Powless

A curfew has been imposed. Amazonian towns have been militarized. AIDESEP officials are in communication with the communities that there are many missing, many presumed dead. The government has begun persecuting and threatening jail for Indigenous leaders, while the leaders have said they are ready to go to jail to defend their rights. The fear is growing that the government is trying to build support to further repress Indigenous groups. This is not a path to peace and reconciliation.

For now, the protests will continue. If we are serious about safeguarding the human rights of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, we need to act now. The violent repression of Indigenous protests and the loss of civil liberties must come to an end. If we want to protect and preserve the Amazon, and its bio-cultural diversity, especially in the face of climate change, there is no better protection than keeping it under the control of those who have maintained it forever. The free trade laws that open up the Amazon to logging, mining, oil and agroindustry must be suspended. Indigenous Peoples' rights - to self-determination, to their lands and resources, to their lives - must be protected and guaranteed. If we are to stop other atrocities and bloodshed, the battle line must be withdrawn, immediately, and there must be dialogue.



For up-to-date information and planned actions: http://peruanista.blogspot.com/

So far actions are planned in Canada, the US, Australia, India and more.

Website of AIDESEP: [link:www.aidesep.org.pe/index.php?id=5|Aidesep, pueblos indígenas amazónicos del Peru | Portada]



Donations can be made to "SOLIDARIDAD AIDESEP", at
Bank Name: Banco de Crédito del Perú
Account number: 193-1070011-1-01
Account name: AIDESEP-VARIOS
Swift Code: BCPLPEPL
Address: Jr. Lampa 499, Cercado de Lima, Peru



Peruvian news network, with many (shocking) videos: http://enlacenacional.com/

Collection of actions to take and media sources: http://beckermanlegal.com/Peru.htm

In depth analysis of the situation: https://nacla.org/node/5879

AmazonWatch investigates disposed bodies: http://www.amazonwatch.org/newsroom/view_news.php?id=1843

Send a letter to Peruvian officials: http://amazonwatch.org/peru-action-alert.php

Preliminary blog: Calm at the Center of the Storm: Reporting from the Amazonian Peoples' Headquarters in Lima | rabble.ca

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powless/sets/72157619320374511/

Democracy Now! Report: http://intercontinentalcry.org/democracy-now-reports-on-bagua-massacre/

News Report from Australia: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/08/2592391.htm?section=world


http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2009/06/peru-battle-lines-drawn-over-amazon [/quote]

Two Men Who Stood Under the Plunderers’ Knives
by Amy Goodman

Ken Saro-Wiwa and Alberto Pizango never met, but they are united by a passion for the preservation of their people and their land, and by the fervor with which they were targeted by their respective governments. Saro-Wiwa was executed by the Nigerian government Nov. 10, 1995. Pizango this week was charged by the Peruvian government with sedition and rebellion, and narrowly eluded capture, taking refuge in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Lima. Nicaragua has just granted him political asylum. Two indigenous leaders-one living, one dead-Pizango and Saro-Wiwa demonstrate that effective grass-roots opposition to corporate power can take a personal toll. Saro-Wiwa's family and others just won a landmark settlement in U.S. federal court, ending a 13-year battle with Shell Oil. Pizango's ordeal is just beginning.

Peru and Nigeria are a world apart on the map, but both host abundant natural resources for which the U.S. and other industrialized nations hunger.

The Niger Delta is one of the world's most productive oil fields. Shell Oil began extracting oil there in 1958. Before long, the indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta suffered from pollution, destruction of the mangrove forests and depletion of fish stocks that sustained them. Gas flares constantly lit up the sky, fouling the air and denying generations a glimpse of a dark night. The despoliation of traditional Ogoni land in the Niger Delta inspired Saro-Wiwa to lead an international, nonviolent campaign targeting Shell. For his commitment, Saro-Wiwa was arrested by the Nigerian dictatorship, subjected to a sham trial and hanged with eight other Ogoni activists. I visited the Niger Delta and Ogoniland in 1998, and met Ken's family. His father, Jim Wiwa, did not mince words: "Shell has a hand in the killing of my own son."

Family members sued Shell Oil, charging it with complicity in the executions. They were granted their day in U.S. court under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows people outside the U.S. to bring charges against an offender in U.S. courts when the charges amount to war crimes, genocide, torture or, as in the case of the Ogoni Nine, extrajudicial, summary execution. Despite Shell's efforts to have the case (Wiwa v. Shell) thrown out, it was set to be tried in a New York federal court two weeks ago. After several delays, Shell settled, agreeing to pay $15.5 million.

Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Wiwa, said: "We now have an opportunity to draw a line on the sad past and ... face the future with some hope that what we've done here will have helped to change the way in which businesses regard their operations abroad. ... We need to focus on the development needs of the people. ... We've created evidence, an example, that with enough commitment to nonviolence and dialogue, you can begin to build some kind of creative justice. And we hope that people will take their signals from that and push for similar examples of creative justice, where communities and all the stakeholders where oil production is are able to mutually benefit from oil production, rather than exploitation and degradation of the environment."

Peruvian indigenous populations have been protesting nonviolently since April, with road blockades a popular tactic. At issue is the so-called U.S./Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, which would override protections of indigenous land, granting access to foreign corporations for resource extraction.

This week, eyewitnesses allege that Peruvian special forces police carried out a massacre at one of the blockades. Pizango, the leader of the national indigenous organization the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, accused the government of President Alan Garcia of ordering the attack: "Our brothers are cornered. I want to put the responsibility on the government. We are going to put the responsibility on Alan Garcia's government for ordering this genocide. ... They've said that we indigenous peoples are against the system, but, no, we want development, but from our perspective, development that adheres to legal conventions. ... The government has not consulted us. Not only am I being persecuted, but I feel that my life is in danger, because I am defending the rights of the peoples, the legitimate rights that the indigenous people have."

Saro-Wiwa told me in 1994, just before he returned to Nigeria, "I'm a marked man." Pizango has challenged the powerful Peruvian government and the corporate interests it represents. Pizango is now marked, but still alive. Will the international community allow him and the indigenous people he represents to suffer the same fate as Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people?

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of [link:www.democracynow.org|"Democracy Now!]," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 700 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090609_the_free_markets_marked_men/

Indigenous Peoples: 'We Are Fighting for Our Lives and Our Dignity'

Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands – often paying the ultimate price

by John Vidal

It has been called the world's second "oil war", but the only similarity between Iraq and events in the jungles of northern Peru over the last few weeks has been the mismatch of force. On one side have been the police armed with automatic weapons, teargas, helicopter gunships and armoured cars. On the other are several thousand Awajun and Wambis Indians, many of them in war paint and armed with bows and arrows and spears.

In some of the worst violence seen in Peru in 20 years, the Indians this week warned Latin America what could happen if companies are given free access to the Amazonian forests to exploit an estimated 6bn barrels of oil and take as much timber they like. After months of peaceful protests, the police were ordered to use force to remove a road bock near Bagua Grande.

In the fights that followed, at least 50 Indians and nine police officers were killed, with hundreds more wounded or arrested. The indigenous rights group Survival International described it as "Peru's Tiananmen Square".

"For thousands of years, we've run the Amazon forests," said Servando Puerta, one of the protest leaders. "This is genocide. They're killing us for defending our lives, our sovereignty, human dignity."

Yesterday, as riot police broke up more demonstrations in Lima and a curfew was imposed on many Peruvian Amazonian towns, President Garcia backed down in the face of condemnation of the massacre. He suspended – but only for three months – the laws that would allow the forest to be exploited. No one doubts the clashes will continue.

Peru is just one of many countries now in open conflict with its indigenous people over natural resources. Barely reported in the international press, there have been major protests around mines, oil, logging and mineral exploitation in Africa, Latin America, Asia and North America. Hydro electric dams, biofuel plantations as well as coal, copper, gold and bauxite mines are all at the centre of major land rights disputes.

A massive military force continued this week to raid communities opposed to oil companies' presence on the Niger delta. The delta, which provides 90% of Nigeria's foreign earnings, has always been volatile, but guns have flooded in and security has deteriorated. In the last month a military taskforce has been sent in and helicopter gunships have shelled villages suspected of harbouring militia. Thousands of people have fled. Activists from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have responded by killing 12 soldiers and this week set fire to a Chevron oil facility. Yesterday seven more civilians were shot by the military.

The escalation of violence came in the week that Shell agreed to pay £9.7m to ethnic Ogoni families – whose homeland is in the delta – who had led a peaceful uprising against it and other oil companies in the 1990s, and who had taken the company to court in New York accusing it of complicity in writer Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution in 1995.

Meanwhile in West Papua, Indonesian forces protecting some of the world's largest mines have been accused of human rights violations. Hundreds of tribesmen have been killed in the last few years in clashes between the army and people with bows and arrows.

"An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining resources from indigenous territories," says Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an indigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. "There is a crisis of human rights. There are more and more arrests, killings and abuses.

"This is happening in Russia, Canada, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Amazon, all over Latin America, Papua New Guinea and Africa. It is global. We are seeing a human rights emergency. A battle is taking place for natural resources everywhere. Much of the world's natural capital – oil, gas, timber, minerals – lies on or beneath lands occupied by indigenous people," says Tauli-Corpus.

What until quite recently were isolated incidents of indigenous peoples in conflict with states and corporations are now becoming common as government-backed companies move deeper on to lands long ignored as unproductive or wild. As countries and the World Bank increase spending on major infrastructural projects to counter the economic crisis, the conflicts are expected to grow.

Indigenous groups say that large-scale mining is the most damaging. When new laws opened the Philippines up to international mining 10 years ago, companies flooded in and wreaked havoc in indigenous communities, says MP Clare Short, former UK international development secretary and now chair of the UK-based Working Group on Mining in the Philippines.

Short visited people affected by mining there in 2007: "I have never seen anything so systematically destructive. The environmental effects are catastrophic as are the effects on people's livelihoods. They take the tops off mountains, which are holy, they destroy the water sources and make it impossible to farm," she said.

In a report published earlier this year, the group said: "Mining generates or exacerbates corruption, fuels armed conflicts, increases militarisation and human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings."

The arrival of dams, mining or oil spells cultural death for communities. The Dongria Kondh in Orissa, eastern India, are certain that their way of life will be destroyed when British FTSE 100 company Vedanta shortly starts to legally exploit their sacred Nyamgiri mountain for bauxite, the raw material for aluminium. The huge open cast mine will destroy a vast swath of untouched forest, and will reduce the mountain to an industrial wasteland. More than 60 villages will be affected.

"If Vedanta mines our mountain, the water will dry up. In the forest there are tigers, bears, monkeys. Where will they go? We have been living here for generations. Why should we leave?" asks Kumbradi, a tribesman. "We live here for Nyamgiri, for its trees and leaves and all that is here."

Davi Yanomami, a shaman of the Yanomami, one of the largest but most isolated Brazilian indigenous groups, came to London this week to warn MPs that the Amazonian forests were being destroyed, and to appeal for help to prevent his tribe being wiped out.

"History is repeating itself", he told the MPs. "Twenty years ago many thousand gold miners flooded into Yanomami land and one in five of us died from the diseases and violence they brought. We were in danger of being exterminated then, but people in Europe persuaded the Brazilian government to act and they were removed.

"But now 3,000 more miners and ranchers have come back. More are coming. They are bringing in guns, rafts, machines, and destroying and polluting rivers. People are being killed. They are opening up and expanding old airstrips. They are flooding into Yanomami land. We need your help.

"Governments must treat us with respect. This creates great suffering. We kill nothing, we live on the land, we never rob nature. Yet governments always want more. We are warning the world that our people will die."

According to Victor Menotti, director of the California-based International Forum on Globalisation, "This is a paradigm war taking place from the arctic to tropical forests. Wherever you find indigenous peoples you will find resource conflicts. It is a battle between the industrial and indigenous world views."

There is some hope, says Tauli-Corpus. "Indigenous peoples are now much more aware of their rights. They are challenging the companies and governments at every point."

In Ecuador, Chevron may be fined billions of dollars in the next few months if an epic court case goes against them. The company is accused of dumping, in the 1970s and 1980s, more than 19bn gallons of toxic waste and millions of gallons of crude oil into waste pits in the forests, leading to more than 1,400 cancer deaths and devastation of indigenous communities. The pits are said to be still there, mixing chemicals with groundwater and killing fish and wildlife.

The Ecuadorian courts have set damages at $27bn (£16.5bn). Chevron, which inherited the case when it bought Texaco, does not deny the original spills, but says the damage was cleaned up.

Back in the Niger delta, Shell was ordered to pay $1.5bn to the Ijaw people in 2006 – though the company has so far escaped paying the fines. After settling with Ogoni families in New York this week, it now faces a second class action suit in New York over alleged human rights abuses, and a further case in Holland brought by Niger Delta villagers working with Dutch groups.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian indigenous villagers who claim their guards committed human rights violations, and there are dozens of outstanding cases against other companies operating in the Niger Delta.

"Indigenous groups are using the courts more but there is still collusion at the highest levels in court systems to ignore land rights when they conflict with economic opportunities," says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. "Everything is for sale, including the Indians' rights. Governments often do not recognise land titles of Indians and the big landowners just take the land."

Indigenous leaders want an immediate cessation to mining on their lands. Last month, a conference on mining and indigenous peoples in Manila called on governments to appoint an ombudsman or an international court system to handle indigenous peoples' complaints.

"Most indigenous peoples barely have resources to ensure their basic survival, much less to bring their cases to court. Members of the judiciary in many countries are bribed by corporations and are threatened or killed if they rule in favour of indigenous peoples.

"States have an obligation to provide them with better access to justice and maintain an independent judiciary," said the declaration.

But as the complaints grow, so does the chance that peaceful protests will grow into intractable conflicts as they have in Nigeria, West Papua and now Peru. "There is a massive resistance movement growing," says Clare Short. "But the danger is that as it grows, so does the violence."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/13/forests-environment-oil-companies

I've long known about Japan's oppression of the Ainu. Now that their culture and language are nearly extinct, there is a small, tentative Ainu rights movement.

China has oppressed the Tibetans and Uighurs, as we know, but it's also home to dozens of other ethnic groups that no one outside of China has ever heard of. Like the Tibetans and Uighurs, they're under pressure to "become Chinese."

Indonesia persecutes tribes in West Irian for not practicing one of the permitted religions (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism). West Irian was once Dutch New Guinea. The Dutch ruled it separately from Indonesia, and indeed, the people there are not related to the Malayo-Polynesian peoples of Indonesia. Union with Papua-New Guinea would have made more sense, but Sukarno insisted.

I recently saw a Norwegian film called The Kautokeino Rebellion, about clashes between the Norwegians and the Sami (Lapps) in the nineteenth century. A lot of it will look familiar to anyone who knows the history of the American West, especially the trading posts selling liquor to keep the indigenous people dependent.

This reminds me of what Stephen Hawking says about the possibility of humanity interacting with an extraterrestrial race. For all our sakes, we better hope they are more enlightened than we are.

But don't advertise ourselves to aliens, warns Hawking
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/but-dont-advertise-ourselves-to-aliens-warns-hawking-1264845.html

p.s. I personally am of the view that any intelligent life that would contact us would most likely be more peaceful and perhaps more spiritually evolved than we, but, of course, no one really knows (anything is possible).