ACTION ALERT
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!
Resource Boom in Peru's Amazon Threatens Indigenous Peoples' Livelihoods and Their Rainforest Homes
By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal with Rainforest Rescue
http://www.rainforestportal.org/ &
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/ May 27, 2009
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=peru_amazon
Support tens of thousands of indigenous people bravely protesting Peru government's give-away of their rainforest homes to oil, mining and logging industry without their approval; insist peaceful protests are not met with violence by President Alan Garcia's government, and that the focus for Amazonian development be upon benefiting from standing trees and intact rainforest ecosystems.
BRIEF BACKGROUND: Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are protesting investment laws passed under a free-trade pact with the United States and against concessions granted to foreign energy companies. Some 30,000 indigenous people have blockaded roads, rivers and railways to demand repeal of new laws that allow oil, mining and logging companies to enter indigenous territories without seeking consent or even any consultation. Indigenous communities complain that some 70% of Peruvian Amazon territory is now leased for oil and gas exploration, putting at risk their own lives and the biodiversity of the Amazon.
Please add your voice in solidarity with the tens of thousands of indigenous people and their international supporters mobilizing to protect the Peruvian Amazon. Send a letter today to the Garcia Administration demanding respect for the constitutionally guaranteed rights of indigenous peoples, and Amazon development based upon standing forests.
TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=peru_amazon
DISCUSS THIS ALERT:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/05/alert_resource_boom_in_perus_a.asp
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Amazonian Indigenous Protest Provokes Peruvian Government Reprisals
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/27-5
Oil Firms and Loggers 'Push Indigenous People to Brink of Extinction'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/28-2
Peru Protesters: 'Police are Throwing Bodies in the River'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/09-0
Trade Agreement Kills Amazon Indians
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/19-10
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Up to 34 Reported Killed in Amazon Land Protest
Franklin Briceno and Frank Bajak, The Associated Press: "Indians protesting oil and gas exploration on their lands battled police in Peru's remote Amazon Friday, with authorities and Indian leaders separately reporting nine police and 25 protester deaths."
http://www.truthout.org/060609D
Nine More Police Killed in Amazon Protests in Peru
Carla Salazar, Tamy Higa and Frank Bajak, The Associated Press: "President Alan Garcia labored Saturday to contain Peru's worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil and gas on their native lands."
http://www.truthout.org/060709G
US-Peru FTA Sparks Indigenous Massacre
Tom Loudon, Truthout: "During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, confrontations between nonviolent indigenous protesters and police have left up to 100 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians, who have been conducting peaceful demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest."
http://www.truthout.org/061109B
Images Reveal Full Horror of "Amazon's Tiananmen"
Guy Adams, The Independent UK: "The events of Friday, 5 June, when armed police went to clear 2,000 Aguaruna and Wampi Indians from a secluded highway near the town of Bagua Grande, are the subject of a heated political debate. They have sparked international condemnation and thrown Peru's government into crisis. Yet until today, details were shrouded in mystery."
http://www.truthout.org/061909K
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60 Killed in Peru Rainforest Protest
Peruvian authorities have declared a military curfew, and troops are patrolling towns in the Amazon jungle.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22797.htm
'Police Are Throwing Bodies in the River,' Say Native Protesters
Foreign activists on the scene in the town of Bagua, in the northern province of Amazonas, report that the police opened fire early in the morning on the unarmed protesters, some of whom were still sleeping, and deliberately mowed them down as they held up their arms or attempted to flee.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47142
Cover-up claim after Peru clashes
Human rights lawyers have accused Peru's government of a cover-up, after clashes between police and indigenous protesters killed at least 50 people. The lawyers say hundreds more may be missing, amid rumours that the police have hidden bodies. But they say rights groups cannot get in to investigate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8092453.stm
Peru: Battle lines drawn over the Amazon
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.
http://snipurl.com/jusyj
Peru: Blood Flows in the Amazon
By James Petras
When egregious violations of human rights are committed in Latin America by a US backed client-President following Washington's formula of 'free trade', deregulation of environmental protections and hostility toward anti-imperialist countries (Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador), Obama favors complicity over condemnation.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22813.htm
Oil and Indians Don't Mix
By Greg Palast
No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when Natives are on top of Exxon's or BP's glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: lands can be seized for The Public's Need for Oil.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22816.htm
Blood at the Blockade: Peru's Indigenous Uprising
On June 6, near a stretch of highway known as the Devil's Curve in the northern Peruvian Amazon, police began firing live rounds into a multitude of indigenous protestors - many wearing feathered crowns and carrying spears.
https://nacla.org/node/5879
Death In The Amazon
Indigenous Peoples' Global Fight with Big Business
By John Vidal
As mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples battle to protect their land, and often pay the ultimate price.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22837.htm
Indians clash with armed police in Peru
Video report
Up to 100 people have been killed this week alone in clashes between the Indians and armed police.
http://snipurl.com/k6n4x
Inside the Peruvian Amazon
Video report
"Warning - Video contains images that some readers may find disturbing
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22837.htm
Massacre in the Amazon: The U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement Sparks a Battle Over Land and Resources
By Raúl Zibechi
On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands-a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22861.htm
From Information Clearing House
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Peru: Save the Amazon
The Peruvian government has pushed through legislation that could allow extractive and large-scale farming companies to rapidly destroy their Amazon rainforest.
Indigenous peoples have peacefully protested for two months demanding their lawful say in decrees that will contribute to the devastation of the Amazon's ecology and peoples, and be disastrous for the global climate. But last weekend President Garcia responded: sending in special forces to suppress protests in violent clashes, and labelling the protesters as terrorists.
These indigenous groups are on the frontline of the struggle to protect our earth -- Let's stand with them and call on President Alan Garcia (who is widely known to be sensitive to his international reputation) to immediately stop the violence and open up dialogue. Click below to sign the urgent global petition and a prominent and well-respected Latin-American politician will deliver it to the government on our behalf.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/peru_stop_violence
More than 70 per cent of the Peruvian Amazon is now up for grabs. Giant oil and gas companies, like the Anglo-French Perenco and the North Americans ConocoPhillips and Talisman Energy, have already pledged multi-billionaire investments in the region. These extractive industries have a very poor record of bringing benefits to local people and preserving the environment in developing countries - which is why indigenous groups are asking for internationally-recognized rights to consultation on the new laws.
For decades the world and indigenous peoples have watched as extractive industries devastated the rainforest that is home to some and a vital treasure to us all (some climate scientists call the Amazon the "lungs of the planet" - breathing in the carbon emissions that cause global warming and producing oxygen).
The protests in Peru are the biggest yet and the most desperate, we can't afford to let them fail. Sign the petition, and encourage your friends and family to join us, so we can help bring justice to the indigenous peoples of Peru and prevent further acts of violence from all parties.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/peru_stop_violence
In solidarity,
Luis, Paula, Alice, Ricken, Graziela, Ben, Brett, Iain, Pascal, Raj, Taren and the entire Avaaz team.
Sources:
# Civilians and police killed: Human rights lawyers accuse the government of a cover-up, BBC, 10 June:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8092453.stm
# Civil Society Condemns Massacre of Indigenous People in Peru, 8 June:
http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/765/en/global_witness_condems_violence_in_peru
# On Peru's rift over economic policy and the controversial free trade agreement with the US , Reuters, 9 June:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN09374943
# Research Article: Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples, M. Finer et al:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002932
# Oil companies ‘should withdraw’ as Peru ‘faces its Tiananmen’, Survival International, 8 June:
http://www.survival-international.org/news/4640
# Peru's Amazon oil deals denounced, BBC News, 3 February:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6326741.stm
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As Peruvian Indigenous Leader Seeks Asylum, Indigenous Voices Must Be Heard
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/10-0
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'We are fighting for our lives and our dignity'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/13/forests-environment-oil-companies
Informant: Teresa Binstock
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Tell the United States government to condemn killings in the Peruvian Amazon
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/676/t/580/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1120&track=EWalert
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Amazon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=indigenous
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=rainforest
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Business
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Exxon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=logging
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+Dudenhoefer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=John+Vidal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Franklin+Briceno
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Frank+Bajak
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Carla+Salazar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tamy+Higa
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Loudon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=James+Petras
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Greg+Palast
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=John+Vidal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Laura+Carlsen
