Peru Amazon Natives fight for their land
By Renzo Pipoli, Today correspondent
Story Published: May 9, 2009
Machiguengas protest along the Urubamba in the
southeastern Peruvian Amazon. The Machiguengas, which number some 50,000,
are blocking waterways used by oil and gas companies to supply their
facilities with fuel, food and personnel.
The remaining Amazon Native nations in Peru – some 350,000 people who
depend on fishing and hunting in mostly clean rainforest areas they held for
centuries – appeared set May 7 for more uneven confrontations after the Peru
Navy rammed and destroyed the river barricades they had set up April 9 to
protest laws that Natives say threaten their survival.
According to the Peru ombudsman’s office in Lima, on May 4 a Peruvian Navy
ship “broke the barrier that kichuas and arabelas had set up in past weeks
as part of a Native protest.” Natives wanted to prevent river traffic as
part of efforts to halt activities in the Amazon to protest new Peruvian
laws that allegedly ease the exploitation of oil, lumber and gold available.
On May 4, a Navy ship broke ropes and crushed canoes that had been tied
there in past weeks to prevent transit. AIDESEP, the Native organization
coordinating the protests reported that, as a result, three retained ships
used by oil company Perenco were able to continue on their way. Perenco
officials declined comment.
AIDESEP said that in retaliation, Natives are preparing as many as four new
barricades in the same waterway.
A Peru Navy official denied any violence in the opening of the barricade,
claiming it wanted to open the waterway for transit. A later report assures
that the Peruvian Navy will be on patrol to prevent more barricades in the
area.
Why the protests?
Last year, when President Alan Garcia’s administration was about to complete
a long-awaited free trade accord with the U.S., he received special powers
to get laws needed to implement the accord quickly. But those powers were
“also used to enact separate, unrelated legislation,” said Carlos Monge, a
researcher at local think tank DESCO. He is studying the conflict, and is
also a member of an organization named Revenue Watch Institute, which
according to its Web site “promotes the responsible management of oil, gas
and mineral resources for the public good.”
The 2009 protests are a repeat of protests in mid-2008 which, at the
start, where neglected by the government until Natives occupied gas
platforms owned by Argentina-based oil company Pluspetrol in an Amazon
area known as Block 56. Peruvian officials rushed to end the protests by
promising that Congress would work to repeal the laws they feared. But
Congress never acted.
In mid-2008, Pluspetrol had a new gas extraction platform in Block 56
that it could not access as it was occupied by thousands of Natives.
Pluspetrol demanded help from the Peruvian government to make the
country viable for investment again by improving security. |
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AIDESEP spokesman Edson Rosales said Natives had intended to carry out
blockades, but not occupations in this year’s protests. But Natives occupied
pumping stations of the only Peruvian crude oil pipeline which, since around
April 24, was forced to shut, according to Natives and other industry
sources.
Peru’s state oil company Petroperu, which owns the pipeline, has not said
anything about any crude pipeline shutdown. The National Society of Mining,
Oil and Energy – which groups several companies operating in Peru including
some operating in the Amazon – said it did not have any comment on the
protest.
Garcia meets oil investors
In mid-April, Garcia met with the president of France-based oil company
Perenco, which has plans to develop an area of the northern Peruvian Amazon
as well as build hundreds of kilometers of new pipeline through rainforest
to move the crude they expect to be producing by 2013.
In early May, Garcia met with the president of Spain-based oil company
Repsol YPF, who informed Garcia of the company’s plans to develop oil and
gas exploitation areas in the northern and central Peruvian Amazon by
investing as much as $500 million annually within the next five years.
In mid-April, Garcia also hosted a contract signing ceremony where he
welcomed oil and gas investors from several countries.
The contracts signed included accords with officials from India, South
Korea, Ireland, Vietnam, England and Canada which will do seismic testing
and later drill areas of the central Amazon. Contracts were also signed with
companies from Spain, Australia and the U.S. for similar efforts in the
north Amazon.
Yet Garcia had not met with Natives as of May 6 or made any comment
regarding the protests in his nearly daily speeches. Monge said that such
government posture appears to be setting up a confrontation.
Mamerto Maicua, a Native leader in the northern Peruvian Amazon, said the
Natives were readying more actions including the possible occupation of the
airport in the city of Tarapoto as well as blockades of the only Peruvian
Amazon highway.
“These actions are a reply to being treated as if we did not exist.”
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