[Marxism] 30 dead as clashes intensify in Peruvian Amazon

[Fred Feldman]

Peru: Indigenous protests force government negotiation
Kiraz Janicke
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/797/41023



Over 30 dead in worsening Peruvian Amazon clashes

Fri Jun 5, 2009 7:27pm EDT

By Terry Wade and Marco Aquino

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE55463G20090605


LIMA (Reuters) - Up to 31 people died and dozens were injured in
clashes on Friday between Peruvian police and Amazon tribes protesting
against government efforts to lure foreign energy and mining companies
to the rain forest.

In the worst unrest to hit President Alan Garcia's current government,
22 protesters and nine police officers died, tribal leaders and the
interior ministry said.

Angry protesters responded by saying they had taken a group of police
hostage near an oil pumping station belonging to state-owned
Petroperu. They threatened to set it ablaze unless police called off
efforts to break up demonstrations in the Amazon basin.

"We have taken 38 police hostage," Carlos Huaman, a protester, said on
RPP radio. "There are 2,000 of us and we are ready to burn the
station."

The conflict, which has prompted calls for Garcia's prime minister and
interior minister to quit, has underscored deep divisions in Peru
between wealthy elites in Lima and poor indigenous groups in the
countryside.

Critics say the government has not done enough to lower the poverty
rate from 36 percent and that economic boom times enjoyed before the
current downturn failed to reach the poor.

"I hold the government of President Alan Garcia responsible for
ordering this genocide," indigenous leader Alberto Pizango told
reporters in Lima as the government issued a warrant for his arrest
for encouraging the protests.

HELICOPTER ATTACKS CHARGED

In the violence on Friday, indigenous leaders said police shot at
hundreds of protesters from helicopters to end a roadblock on a remote
jungle highway 870 miles from Lima, the capital.

Police accused protesters of firing first, but the tribesmen denied
having guns and said they only carried their traditional spears.

Thousands of Amazon natives, demanding more control over natural
resources, have intermittently blocked roads and waterways since April
to try to force the government to revoke a series of investment laws
passed last year and to revise concessions granted to foreign energy
companies.

The laws encourage oil, mining, and agricultural companies to invest
billions of dollars in the mostly pristine region.

Opposition leaders from the left and right said Garcia should fire
Prime Minister Yehude Simon and Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas
for allowing the standoff to turn violent.

"This is very damaging for Peru," former President Alejandro Toledo
said on TV. "Garcia needs to show leadership."

GARCIA BLAMES PROTESTERS, OPPOSITION

The protests have shut the main pipeline that carries oil from the
Amazon to the Pacific Ocean for weeks and highlighted the risks of
investing in Peru.

Argentina's Pluspetrol, which had already curtailed most work at its
lot 1AB in northern Peru, said on Friday it halted production. It
normally pumps about a fifth of Peru's total oil output. In April, lot
1AB produced about 16,770 barrels a day.

Garcia, whose approval rating is just 30 percent, blamed protesters
for provoking violence and said it was time to lift the blockades of
roads, rivers and energy installations.

"It appears that this is being done to generate disorder for electoral
reasons," Garcia said.

Garcia's allies have at times linked the protests to populist
opposition leader Ollanta Humala, who spooked investors when he nearly
won the 2006 presidential race and is expected to run again in 2011.

Humala, who enjoys support among the rural poor, said Garcia's APRA
party made a serious error on Thursday, when it blocked a motion in
Congress to open debate on a law that tribal leaders want to revise or
overturn.

Some of the controversial laws encouraging foreign investment in the
Amazon were passed last year as Garcia moved to bring Peru's
regulatory framework into compliance with a free-trade agreement with
the United States.

"The government has decided to solve this social, economic and
political problem not in Congress, where it should be solved, but on
the battlefield," Humala said at a news conference.

Analysts said Garcia may also try to pin blame for the lingering
protests on Prime Minister Simon, who tried to negotiate a peaceful
end to the blockades for weeks.

Simon, a former left-wing activist, has struggled since Garcia hired
him a year ago to help avert social protests.

"Without a doubt, his strategy of dialogue failed," Peruvian political
analyst Sinesio Lopez Jimenez said about Simon. "This will probably
force him to resign."

(Additional reporting by Dana Ford and Teresa Cespedes; Editing by
Anthony Boadle and Eric Walsh)