Peru clash with tribes, police kills at least nine

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Peru clash with tribes, police kills at least nine
Fri Jun 5, 2009 4:53pm BST

LIMA, June 5 (Reuters) - Protesters and police clashed on a remote jungle highway in the Peruvian Amazon on Friday, leaving at least nine people dead including four police, officials and indigenous leaders said.

Native communities in Peru, demanding more control over natural resources, have blocked roads and waterways off-and-on since April in a bid to get the government to revoke a series of investment rules passed last year and revise concessions granted to foreign energy companies.

"I hold the government of President Alan Garcia responsible for ordering the genocide," indigenous leader Alberto Pizango told reporters in Peru's capital, Lima.

Friday's confrontation, which protesters say happened when armed forces opened fire on them from helicopters, is by far the most violent act of the demonstrations so far.


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN0546545020090605?rpc=401&

[MineralMan]

1. Yah...helicopters trump blowguns pretty universally.

Ain't progress grand?

[Posteritatis]

2. I doubt the four dead cops were killed by blowguns

Way to perpetuate a stereotype, though.

[MineralMan]

3. Uh...the cops have helicopters. The locals don't. It's still a

fight that's not balanced at all. The locals don't want the roads into their location. The blowpipe is just a symbol of what has destroyed local cultures all through South America.

Perhaps you did not catch my sarcasm.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Completely appropriate. I was shocked when I saw "helicopters" were used there.

Alan Garcia always wins against poor and helpless people.

His earlier Presidential term also leaned in the direction of slaughtering fantastically unprepared unarmed people. He was known for his massacres of mountain dwellers in his first Presidential incarnation:

October 24, 1985
AROUND THE WORLD; Peruvian Peasants Say Soldiers Killed 59
AP

Andean peasants asserted today that soldiers in Ayacucho Province shot or stabbed to death 59 people in a massacre in two villages late in August. They said most of the victims were children and elderly people.

Two adults and three children appeared at a news conference in Parliament on Tuesday. One of the adults, Nemesio Gutierrez, said the massacre was carried out by soldiers who arrived Aug. 27 by helicopter in the villages of Bellavista and Umaro high in the Andes and about 425 miles southeast of Lima.

If substantiated, it would be the second massacre of a large number of peasants by soldiers since President Alan Garcia took office July 28 and pledged to halt human rights violations by security forces fighting the Maoist Shining Path rebels.

A military investigation confirmed that at least 49 people were slain by soldiers on Aug. 14 in the hamlet of Accomarca, also in Ayacucho Province.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/24/world/around-the-world-peruvian-peasants-say-soldiers-killed-59.html

~~~~~~~~

~snip~
the Armed Forces created the Ayacucho Emergency Zone, in which military power was superior to civilian power, and many constitutional rights were suspended. The military committed many human rights violations in the area where it had political control. Scores of peasants were massacred by the armed forces. A special US-trained counterterrorist police battalion known as the "Sinchis" were particularly notorious for their human rights violations.

After the election of Alan García, death squads such as the Rodrigo Franco Command were formed.....The Rodrigo Franco Command was a paramilitary organization that acted as a death squad in Peru from 1985 to 1990. ...

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Internal-conflict-in-Peru

~~~~~~~~~
I don't have time to locate it now, but I have read and posted here the incident in the mountains during his firt term when government forces went to a village, got the villagers to come out of hiding, since they had been hiding from both his forces and the Shining Path, and start digging a pond, telling them that once the pond was dug, the government would fill it with fish and they would be able to feed themselves. After the people dug a fairly large hole the soldiers shot the villagers and threw them in the hole and buried them.

ALL these events have been deeply savage. We just don't even bother to report them ordinarily in the US corporate media. Apparently they are in every way just as racist as the elitist European descended scum puppet oligarchs in Latin America who serve to do their corporate masters will and would rather just kill people in the road and spare themselves the time needed to secure their cooperation, etc.

[gorbal]

5. We don't hear enough about this.

I thought this was interesting-

Quote-

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.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/200965222937993477.html

Note that Amazon Watch is supporting the protesters side of the story: is anyone familiar with Amazon Watch?

http://www.amazonwatch.org/

[xchrom]

6. recommend

[David__77]

7. AFP: One soldier dies in clash with Sendero Luminoso in Peru jungle

Bad translation:

"A soldier was killed and four were wounded on Friday when they attacked a group of military elements of the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso in southeastern Peru, briefed the Joint Command of the Armed Forces said in a statement."

http://74.125.155.132/translate_c?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.univision.com/contentroot/wirefeeds/noticias/7966814.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.univision.com/contentroot/wirefeeds/noticias/7966814.html%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26num%3D100&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhhXr3s6AGDzqxv2nKz7XuzdLrqupQ

They can't defeat Shining Path after all these years. Inevitably, with Garcia attacking the farmers, miners and indigenous, people will reinforce the insurgency, especially since one faction has repudiated its former leader, Abimael Guzman, and criticized its former conduct during the height of the war.

[BOG PERSON]

10. Why did they reject Gonzalo Thought anyway?

I'm curious.

[David__77]

12. Two reasons.

First, because Gonzalo/Guzman changed his position while in prison to "struggle for a peace accord." He became convinced that Fujimori had solved the problems of the Peruvian ruling class, and that revolution was impossible. The Sendero outside of prison rejected this assessment in the main. But it created enough chaos in the organization that it led to its almost total collapse.

Second, because they realized that Sendero actions like collective punishment and coercive recruitment, etc., in the earlier period had alienated much of their early support among the farmers. So they rejected this practice.

It should be clarified that there are two kind of three "Senderos." One is pro-Guzman, mainly based in the prisons and among ex-prisoners, and supports the "fight for a peace accord." Another is armed in the countryside but supports "peace accords" and Guzman. The third is the one that is most visibly active and rejects Guzman and wants to restart the war.

[struggle4progress]

8. Fatal Clashes Erupt in Peru at Roadblock (NYT)

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: June 5, 2009

LIMA, Peru — Clashes between indigenous protesters and security forces on a remote jungle highway in northern Peru left more than a dozen dead on Friday, including 11 police officers, heightening tension over intensifying protests by indigenous groups over plans to open vast tracts of rain forest to oil drilling, logging and hydroelectric dams.

Initial accounts of the clashes varied. Indigenous leaders here said the killings unfolded early on Friday after the police fired from helicopters on hundreds of protesters who had blocked the highway in the northern Bagua Province, with at least 22 civilians killed. The Chachapoyas Medical Association, in the region where the killings took place, put the number of dead Indians at 25 ...

Angered by the government’s failure to involve them in the plans, the indigenous groups in Peru have surprised the authorities with their sudden strength and organization and are now threatening to blunt President Alan García’s efforts to lure foreign investment to the region.

“The president thought we would be docile in accepting plans that could completely change the way we hunt for food and raise crops, and we are not,” said Juan Agustín, 41, a Shipibo Indian and a leader of the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, an umbrella group here representing more than 300,000 people from dozens of indigenous groups ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/world/americas/06peru.html?ref=americas

[struggle4progress]

9. US Gov't Document Links García to 1980s Death Squads (IPS 2007)

Lucy Komisar

NEW YORK, 5 Dec (IPS) ... The one-page document, written in late 1987, said that the party, APRA, and top government officials were running a secret paramilitary organisation. It said they were responsible for the attempted bombing of the El Diario newspaper, linked to the violent Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso, sent people to train in North Korea and may have been involved in executions. It made it clear that it believed that García was giving the orders.

For example, the report said, 'Acting on García's instructions to retaliate for the October 2 assassination of an APRA leader, COSEPAP <a secret APRA branch> recently botched an attempted bombing of a pro-SL <Sendero Luminoso> newspaper.' The attempted bombing happened on Oct. 2, 1987; though the report is undated, the reference to the bombing suggests it was written in October or November 1987.

The U.S. government document was written as a factual account, not as speculation. It appears in the files of the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the U.S. president on foreign policy. A reference to the paper was discovered in the presidential library of Ronald Reagan, U.S. president from 1981-88, and it was obtained after a request for declassification by this reporter.

It has been known for years that the APRA paramilitary Rodrigo Franco Command operated during García's first administration and that it engaged in assassinations of oppositionists. It was determined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, after the fall of repressive President Alberto Fujimori, that the Command was under the direction of García's interior minister, Agustín Mantilla. However, there was no assertion of direct links to García ...

http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1196

[Judi Lynn]

13. This remains an actual threat to this day because he has used death squads already.

He has clearly felt moved to use them because the law didn't give him enough power. From the article:

There is irony in the recent announcement by Peru's President Alan García that he would publish the names of 1,800 'freed terrorists', so that people might recognise and report them if they were participating in anti-state conspiracies. His list includes people imprisoned on false charges or never convicted or sentenced.

One name that is not on the list is that of Alan García. However, according to a declassified U.S. government document, García, during his first administration from 1985-1990, gave instructions to terror squads organised by his political party to assassinate suspected leftists. Victims included trade unionists and other civil society leaders.

~snip~
'The García administration operates a secret paramilitary organisation, perhaps several.' APRA had a branch 'codenamed COSEPAP (security and intelligence command)' that was 'so compartmentalised that many APRA officials are unaware of its existence.'

~snip~
Under a paragraph labeled 'reports of executions', the report says, 'Mantilla reportedly believes that APRA needs the capability to eliminate terrorists because of the judicial system's tendency to release them and police reluctance to kill captured SL militants.' The last four lines of the paragraph are still classified and are blacked out.

The document said, 'Although the paramilitary units appear now to act only against terrorists, the specter of APRA violence is unnerving García's political rivals. Opposition congressmen tried to censure the interior minister for his suspected role in the attempted kidnapping of a leftist congressman with alleged SL ties.'

~snip~
'Exactly who in the armed forces knows what about the paramilitary squads is unclear,' says the U.S. document. It explained, 'The vice interior minister claims that army intelligence assisted his anti-terrorist squad even as the navy was investigating it.'

The U.S. report's final assessment was that García's 'vigilantism will further weaken his standing with the military and political opposition.' The report added, referring to criticism by human rights groups, that 'Military leaders probably are delighted by García's loss of the moral high ground, which lessens pressure on them to be concerned about human rights abuses. But those perpetual coup plotters in the military who are aware of APRA's sponsorship of paramilitary groups must also be aware these could be used to raise the costs of any attempted move against the regime.'

~snip~...The Reagan government at the highest level therefore knew about the killings, but kept silent.

None of the people mentioned in the document has been charged or tried for their crimes. Several former leaders and members of the Rodrigo Franco Command have high-level jobs in the García administration.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this info. was sitting there, some of it STILL unaccessible to the public, in the Reagan library.

Thank you for bringing this information out for us. It's something to file for future use, absolutely.

[underpants]

11. Up to 36 reported killed in Amazon land protest

Up to 36 reported killed in Amazon land protest
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9pNpad9T95Yc7VQREA4BViTQRhwD98KUCCG0

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Indians protesting government moves to develop oil, gas and other resources on their lands battled police in Peru's Amazon on Friday, with authorities and Indian leaders separately reporting 11 police and 25 protesters deaths.

The violence erupted before dawn as officers broke up a road blockade by some 5,000 Indians in an area called Curva del Diablo, or "Devil's Curve."

Protest leaders said police opened fire from helicopters with bullets and tear gas, while national police director Jose Sanchez Farfan said protesters attacked officers, some with firearms. He said they also set fire to government buildings.

Cabinet chief Yehude Simon said that 11 police officers were killed — some with spears — and 109 people were injured. He said three Indians were killed in the clashes.

"One can't say that the natives were the victims," Simon told a news conference late Friday.

The laws, decreed by Garcia as he implemented the Peru-U.S. free trade pact, illegally open communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging, mining and large-scale farming, Indian leaders and environmental groups say.

In addition to violating Peru's constitution, indigenous groups say Garcia is breaking international law by not obtaining their consent.

[Judi Lynn]

14. So a former death-squad user feels authorized by the new Peru-U.S. free trade pact

to illegally send police into the homes of these people to illegally take their homes, their land and throw them out of the only homes they've ever known in order to plunder their land for profit.
o
Whatever happens to both the police and to the indigenous citizens is no skin off dipstick's nose, is it? He's sending Peruvians to hurl indigenous citizens into the void, as they clearly have no where to go, and if they fight back they won't be hitting Garcia they'll only be striking out against government employees who will lose their jobs if they don't comply.

http://delucio.com.nyud.net:8090/blog/wp-content/images/Alan_Garcia_1.jpg

President Garcia's got it made. All profit, no risk. Who wouldn't leap for joy?

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/05L06K39lj16d/610x.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

15. Peru roiled by tension after deadly Amazon clashes

Peru roiled by tension after deadly Amazon clashes
Sat Jun 6, 2009 4:34pm EDT
By Marco Aquino

YURIMAGUAS, Peru (Reuters) - Indigenous protesters and Peru's army refused to back down and a truce looked distant on Saturday, after two battles in the Amazon jungle killed some 50 people in the worst crisis of President Alan Garcia's term.

Protesters said 30 of their own have died and the government said 22 security forces have perished in two days of clashes over the president's drive to bring foreign companies to the rainforest to open mines and drill for oil.

The bloodshed has prompted widespread calls for Garcia's prime minister to quit, underscored divisions between elites in Lima and the rural poor and threatened to derail the government's push to further open up Peru to foreign investors.

Thousands of Indians with wooden spears dug in at blockades on Saturday along remote Amazon highways, vowing to keep protesting if police did not halt efforts to break up their demonstrations.

~snip~
"We don't have guns, we have only these spears," said Huansi, shaking his spear.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55463G20090606?rpc=401&

[Vidar]

16. I hope there is some prospect of the "Bolivarean" revolution spreading to Peru.

Wouldn't mind it spreading to the US, but that's too much to hope for.

[Barrett808]

17. Amazon tribes hold Peru police hostage

TARAPOTO, Peru June 6 (Reuters) - Hundreds of indigenous protesters were holding 38 police hostage early on Saturday in Peru's Amazon jungle after fights between tribes and police killed up to 33 people in the worst violence of President Alan Garcia's government.

Demonstrators also were threatening to set fire to an oil pumping station of state-owned Petroperu unless the government told police to halt efforts to clear weeks of blockades of roads and rivers that have hurt food and fuel supplies.

(more)

http://desdemonadespair.blogspot.com/2009/06/amazon-tribes-hold-peru-police-hostage.html