Photo: Ben Powless on Flickr
On September 22nd, 2016, Peru’s courts ruled to absolve 52 Indigenous people of all charges related to the death of 12 policemen during the altercation in June of 2009 known as the Bagua Massacre.
On September 22nd, 2016, Peru’s courts ruled to absolve 52 Indigenous people of all charges related to the death of 12 policemen during the altercation in June of 2009 known as the Bagua Massacre.
Police and army officials have been sentenced by the Peruvian court for deaths and violence carried out in Bagua, Peru, against Indigenous protesters.
A year and a half following the deaths of at least thirty three indigenous and non-indigenous civilians and police near the town of Bagua, Peru, anthropologist Frederica Barclay suggest that the Peruvian government has failed to implement any significant changes toward greater consultation with indigenous peoples whose territories are being affected by sprawling logging, oil, hydroelectric and mining concessions in the Peruvian Amazon.
In June, the 400,000 indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon won a significant victory: after ten weeks of protests, strikes and bloodshed, they persuaded Peru's President and Congress to repeal laws that ignored their rights and threatened the Amazon rainforest.
The struggle cost scores of lives (the exact number is yet to be established). The non-violent indigenous protesters gained broad support both nationally and internationally as military attacks on the protesters became more brutal and deadly.
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon continue their protests in spite of increasing police violence and repression. Their goal is to repeal a series of new decrees that open the Peruvian Amazon to multinational oil, gas, mining and logging companies, without consultation or consent of the indigenous rainforest inhabitants.
If you have not yet sent a (hardcopy) letter to the President of Peru, please do so today. The situation is urgent to save lives of protesters and to support their demands for rainforest protection and the rights of indigenous communities.
Land Acknowledgement
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