Peru

Alan Garcia’s Peruvian government massacres indigenous Amazonians

www.socialistworld.net, 12/06/2009
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

Bloody attempt to impose neo-liberal capitalism in the Amazon jungle of Peru

Celso Calfullan, Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI in Chile)

What has just occurred in Perú last weekend represents one of the worst human rights abuses in any country in Latin America for the last two decades.

The criminal government of Alan Garcia recently massacred more than thirty indigenous Amazonians who were protesting against the government’s imposition of a dozen decrees that attack their rights to land, water, and the right to live in a contamination free environment. The indigenous peoples have named the laws which the homicidal Peruvian government is trying to impose “the death decrees”. There are indigenous organisations speaking of more than 100 dead, more than 200 wounded, and more than 20 activists “disappeared“.

Alan Garcia will impose the “death decrees” with blood and fire

Through these decrees, the Peruvian government is looking to take away indigenous peoples´ rights to the land and convert communal territory into private and individual territory. In other words, with bullets it wants to impose predatory neoliberal capitalism in the amazon jungle of Perú.

These territories have stimulated the appetites of the big multinational petroleum corporations and Alan Garcia, as a faithful servant to the capitalists, is totally prepared to turn these resources over to the imperialists.

This is the same president who claims to be a “great nationalist”, like many other governments on the continent, but has ended up selling all our natural wealth, including a resource as fundamental as water, to Spain and other imperialist countries, not to mention the minerals and petroleum, which a long time ago they gave to imperialists at criminally low prices.

But unfortunately for the Peruvian president, there are people here with dignity, that have been fighting the expansionist and predatory desires of imperialism for centuries.

The distortion and cover-ups of the capitalist press

The government and the capitalist press want to blame the Amazonian indigenous people for the violence and speak of “conflicts”, but one can´t compare bows and arrows to the war weapons that the government police sharpshooters have.

What is happening with the indigenous Amazonians gives a picture of a problem that is central throughout the whole continent and has to do with appropriation of the natural wealth like petroleum, minerales, and forest resources on the territories of our ancestral peoples. To achieve this, they invent expropriation laws and force them through using repression and by murdering indigenous people.

Apart from being corrupt, Alan Garcia is also a murderer

The capitalists have discovered that the Amazon territory is rich in petroleum and they want it for themselves. For that reason, they put Alan Garcia in power, to carry out their wishes as a corrupt president who is most likely charging a very nice fee for handing over these resources to the big multinational petroleum companies.

Only profit and greed can explain the criminal and genocidal attitude of this supposedly democratic government.

The declarations of the witnesses and the photos that are circulating on the internet simply leave no room for doubt. They speak of the police putting indigenous cadavers into bags, taking them up in helicopters, and from there throwing them into a river.

A “state of emergency”

With the declaration of a State of emergency in this zone, the government is looking to hide the criminal abuses committed by the Peruvian police, who are playing the role of hired hit men for the multinational businesses and the Peruvian government.

It is necessary to demand an international investigation into the events that occurred on the Amazon Peruvian Territory. It is impossible to trust in an investigation led by the Peruvian justice system, which is part of Alan Garcia´s corrupt clan.

This is the way in which the Peruvian government puts into practice Resolution 169 of the OIT regarding the defense of indigenous peoples. It would be good to ask ourselves: What is going on with the international human rights defense organizations?

Alan Garcia should be tried by an international tribunal court for crimes against humanity. This is a campaign which should be taken up throughout the entire continent and in the whole world. We can´t remain silent in the face of this massacre.

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