Peruvian Rainforest Massacre

Double posting, sorry, I am usually so disorganized, and today I am trying to quit smoking too, so I am scattered of the brain. [brain-wave goodbye] BUT READ ON, PLEASE:

Ho YES!!! Canada does indeed do business with Peru - here is the link to the Free Trade Agreement that John Baird had a hand in:

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-...

There is an email link near the bottom of that page that asks Canadians to comment. Lets all ask about the connection to logging the rainforest, and the stopping of protesters with bullets.

Also, here is a link to a group that is allready on this topic, saying "Canada must halt the Peru FTA":

http://www.canadians.org/action/2009/11-June-09.html [3]

Okay, I think we can make a difference here. Save some indigenous lives, and some rainforest. By the way, did you know that there were 10 MILLION indigenous people living in those rainforests 200 years ago, and now there are just 200,000

LINK to Rainforest Facts: http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm [4]

Already being ignored over here. Apparently it's nothing to do with us.

Peru accused of cover-up:

http://www.truthout.org/061909K

Los Angeles - First, the police fire tear gas, then rubber bullets. As protesters flee, they move on to live rounds. One man, wearing only a pair of shorts, stops to raise his hands in surrender. He is knocked to the ground and given an extended beating by eight policemen in black body-armour and helmets.

Demonstrators getting worked-over by the rifle butts and truncheons of Peru's security forces turn out to be the lucky ones, though. Dozens more were shot as they fled. You can see their bullet-ridden bodies, charred by a fire that swept through the scene of the incident, which has since been dubbed "the Amazon's Tiananmen".

The events of Friday, 5 June, when armed police went to clear 2,000 Aguaruna and Wampi Indians from a secluded highway near the town of Bagua Grande, are the subject of a heated political debate. They have sparked international condemnation and thrown Peru's government into crisis.

Yet until today, details were shrouded in mystery. Now, pictures have emerged. They were taken at the scene by two Belgian aid workers, Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quiryneen, and provide compelling details of the chaotic confrontation that killed a reported 60 people, many of them unarmed, with vast numbers still unaccounted for.

"At first, we saw police firing guns and tear gas at a mass of protesters," said Ms Deleu, who reached the highway at 7am, an hour after heavily armed police arrived at the location, 870 miles north of Lima. "Then we saw them beating and kicking people detained on the ground. Later, they shot people in the back as they started fleeing."

A dossier of photographs, many too graphic to be printed in this newspaper, will be shown to MPs at the House of Commons on Monday by Ms Deleu and Mr Quiryneen, who are volunteers for Catapa, a Flemish organisation supporting indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala.

Called Death at Devil's Bend, it attempts to explain what happened when police tried to evict the indigenous tribespeople, who had been blockading the road for several weeks in protest at new laws allowing energy and mining companies to exploit swaths of their ancestral homelands.

One series shows police stopping a passing ambulance. They force four injured protesters out of the vehicle, and beat them for several minutes, claiming, without any apparent justification, that their vehicle was carrying concealed weapons. Another, taken later in the day shows rows of wounded being treated in local hospitals. Nineteen are at Bagua Grand; 47 in Bagua Chica. Many have heavy bruising, and bandages covering bullet wounds.

"Several people said they had been shot while they were fast asleep," said Ms Deleu. "They claim the police woke them up by opening fire. One of the bodies had a bullet wound in his shoulder, which suggested to me that he'd been shot while lying down."

Further pictures, which will only fuel rumours of a government-orchestrated cover-up, show twisted corpses of native Indians lying by the side of the road. When tribal leaders tried to collect them, they came under fire and were refused access. By the next day, the corpses had disappeared.

The Peruvian President, Alan Garcia, has claimed 32 people were killed in the incident, of which 23 were police officers. However human rights lawyers and news reports put the number of confirmed deaths at closer to 60, and say hundreds are still missing.

Until this week, many international observers have been unable to visit the region because of a curfew. Pressure groups have accused security forces of burying and burning corpses to hide the extent of the death toll.

"There needs to be an independent investigation to establish exactly what happened," said Jonathan Mazower of Survival International, which will today publish Ms Deleu and Mr Quiryneen's dossier on its website. "Our initial reaction to these dramatic photographs is that they may provide the first impartial account of what actually went on."

The pictures emerged as Alberto Pizango, the head of Aidesep, the organisation representing 56 of Peru's indigenous tribes, arrived in Nicaragua, after being granted political asylum. Last week, he was prosecuted for "sedition, conspiracy and rebellion".

Meanwhile Mr Garcia has been forced to suspend the introduction of laws allowing foreign companies to exploit the rainforest. His Prime Minister Yehude Simon resigned on Monday, joining populist minister Carmen Vildoso, who quit last week during a general strike in protest at the incident.

Grave robbers of our children's future may be an understatement.  The next generation will never forgive us if this isn't stopped.  

Here is Ben Powless' latest:

kim eliot, thank you for posting that.

Much more!!New articles and sites:

Fate of Rainforests to be determined in next two years:

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0618-duke_forests.html

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Blog post from GNN on the massacre:

http://shiftshapers.gnn.tv/blogs/32190/Massacre_in_Peru_ongoing_100_kill... [11]

Where the hell is the Canadian media as this occurs? Searches on the topic at the Star and the Globe come up blank except for a letter to the editor in each.

If you're in the Toronto area, Ben Powless (a rabble blogger) will be giving a report-back from his time in Peru recently at Ryerson:

BLOOD AND OIL DON'T MIX: REPORT-BACK FROM PERUVIAN AMAZON With speakers Ben Powless and Bob Lovelace

DATE: Friday, June 26, 2009, 7 p.m.
PLACE: Rogers Communication Centre, 80 Gould Street, Room 204 (Ryerson University)
INFO: michelle.langlois@ryerson.ca, mabelernest@hotmail.com [14], suzanneweiss63@yahoo.com [15],
COST: Free – everyone welcome

Six Nations activist Ben Powless will offer reflections about his recent trip to Peru: "Blood and Oil Don't Mix: A report-back from the front lines in Peru."  Ben was on the front lines of the battle between the government in Peru and Indigenous people defending their land against corporate incursion and fighting free trade policies that don’t respect their rights.  Ardoch Algonquin activist Bob Lovelace will speak on the topic, "Justice Indeed".  

There will also be a tribute to the late Cecilia Rosalia Paiva, an indigenous activist from Peru who passed away on May 17th, 2009. About Cecilia: http://transformingpower.ca/en/blog/cecilia-rosalia-paiva-presente-feb-1... [16]

Co-sponsored by:

CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy (Ryerson University), Council of Canadians, Common Frontiers, Latin American Solidarity Network, Pachamama Association, Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, Venezuela We Are With You Coalition

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=126039887032&ref=ts [17]

Although this story still goes on, it has been overtaken in the mainstream news by  the death of MJ, and even by the continuous parade of "cute animal stories" .

  Even on the internet and alternate news sites the issues arising in the Honduras have overshadowed the events of the Peru Rainforest Massacre and indigenous rights there.

 The Fate of the Rainforest is a huge issue for all of us, and it is our own government and corporate interests that are driving the destruction, thru the Trade Pact agreement.

I am just asking that we don't forget about this altogether... lets get back to it when things settle down [and when MJ comes back to life during the funeral?] [joking!].

It is just sickening when you start investigating all the companies lining up in Peru to exploit the rainforests and the indigenous peoples. It is hard to imagine them wining in the face of said companies and multi-country involvement. And that Obama's government just gave the Peruvian military 4.4 million dollars in arms, to apparently kill the indigenous people, says much about nothing being different in the USA.

Corporate greed and the greed of stock market players and investors knows no bounds, and  they have no conscious. Fascist sociopaths one and all.

Canada's deep involvement in this latest exercise in colonial expropriation:

Industry:

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Duran-Ventures-Inc-TSX-VENTURE-DRV-1045407.html [21]

http://news.mining.com/2009/09/16/mining-companies-in-peru-pay-more-than-s-24-billion-in-income-taxes/ [22]

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2008/3/Pages/Intercapital-Canada-Talks-Peru-and-Mining.aspx [23]

http://www.canadians.org/tradeblog/?p=145 [24]

Official government site:

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/peru-perou/highlights-faits/PERCAN2009.aspx?lang=eng [25]

"Ethical fund" bandaids:

http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/599705 [26]

Some of the homegrown businesses involved: 

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43058 [27]

http://www.miningweekly.com/article/canadas-macusani-buys-ram-resources-peru-uranium-assets-2009-03-06 [28]

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SSRI/0x0x45732/3ca37b64-ccbb-42c8... [29]

http://www.pinnacledigest.com/articles/duran-ventures-announces-peru-acquisitions-and-transition-new-ceo [30]

http://www.canadianshieldresources.com/s/Home.asp [31]

http://www.cardero.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=89973&_Title=Cardero-Acquires-New-Properties-In-Peru-And-Argentina [32]

http://agoracom.com/ir/Crystallex/forums/discussion/topics/349696-chines... [33]

One possible response:

"Urgent Action: Support legislation to hold Canadian mining companies to account for abuses overseas

Sep 04 2009

The Canadian government has consistently failed to create meaningful measures to regulate the activities of Canadian mining companies operating overseas. A private member’s bill, number C-300, represents the best chance for urgently needed regulation. It is currently being reviewed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Your letters in support of Bill C-300 are urgently needed to ensure that Canadian mining companies live up to international human rights and labour standards and environmental best practices when they operate overseas, and that government financial and political support are not provided to companies that abuse human rights and the environment.

Bill C-300 [34] is a private member’s bill introduced by Liberal MP John McKay on February 9, 2009. Bill C-300 implements a number of key recommendations from the March 2007 Final Report of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Roundtables [35]. The recommendations reflected the consensus of a multi-stakeholder advisory group that had representatives from industry and civil society groups including MiningWatch Canada.

If passed, Bill C-300 will:

• put in place human rights, labour, and environmental standards that Canadian extractive companies receiving government support must live up to when they operate in developing countries;
• create a complaints mechanism that will allow members of affected communities abroad, or Canadians, to file complaints against companies that are not living up to those standards;
• create a possible sanction for companies that are found to be out of compliance with the standards, in the form of loss of government financial and political support.

It doesn’t matter where you live; the Committee needs to hear from people around the world as well as Canadian voters"

http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/urgent-action-support-legislation-hold-canadian-mining-companies-account-abuses-overseas [36]

No doubt dude.  I just found out about this today and I watch the news everyday.  Phuck...

Thanks for this link.
The others put up are valuable as well but this one in particular gives an upclose look into what is really happening in the 'lungs of the planet' and to those who are laying down their lives to protect it.

"We asked about the reason for the protest. On this point, nearly all answers we received were identical. People had left their communities, made the journey, and camped out, surviving off little more than yucca and bananas, for one simple reason. They wanted to protect their forest. "The forest is our supermarket, the forest is our store, the forest is our pharmacy," related Edwin. They weren't against development, they said, but want a better alternative. Were they the savages? No, they replied; look at how the states waste resources.
They were proper scientists, who protected the forest, who protected humanity against climate change. This was the message they wanted to share with the world. "

..."On our way out of the jungle, passing by Wawas later that day, we chanced upon some thick oil collecting in a pool of muddy water on the side of the road. Following the source led us up a steep ravine, at the top of which we found a few dozen people gathered, working to repair an oil pipeline that appeared to be leaking. Men were hunched over, cutting down oil-covered vegetation and putting it into garbage bags, others scooping up the oil slicks into barrels from atop fresh rain-fed pools. Another crew hastily worked on the pipeline itself, while a group of Indigenous people from a local community had gathered to see what had happened to their land."

..."Military reinforcements soon arrived, telling us it was illegal to take photos here, probably conflating legality with a uniform. We acquiesced, talking to a number of the locals who were concerned that the oil would leak into the river, and contaminate the environment, the waters they drink and the fish they consumed."

..."Much of what we heard hadn't been reported, especially not internationally. However the trip revealed just as many questions as it answered, particularly the number and fate of those who participated in the confrontation early in the morning of June 5th, and who haven't been seen since... "

President Garcia never negotiated with the Apus regarding these energy mining projects, he passed decrees for these projects so that he could obtain the US and Canadian free-trade agreements. Some or all of the decrees were later repealed as a result of the protestsand his government took a huge hit on its credibility (and virtually ended the career of a formerly influential leftist, Yehude Simon).

But I will never forget when Garcia got on TV (PeruTV: government-owned channel), after finally providing a water connection to a group of impoverished rural migrants living in a peri-urban area of Lima. It went something like this: "If you want more resources, you have to stand up and say (to the Amazonian indigenous) that those resources are to be shared. They are the resources of Peru and not just for some."

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Just bumping this up and hopefully ending the thread drift...

I think the thread is on a spam list.

As for the issue-at-hand, what more is there to say? The government report on Bagua is coming out this week (Saturday) and they will not establish any criminal wrong-doing in that report (that's not its scope, anyhow).

The government is chalking up the experience of Bagua as a lesson learned and trying to establish a "new way to do business" in the Amazon through acknowledging accords with locals prior to initating development projects.

http://www.andina.com.pe/Espanol/Noticia.aspx?id=+eTG14AbHN4=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFqbyvgAkPY&feature=fvw

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[Note to j.m.: Don't flag a post as offensive and then reproduce the link, dude!  - Maysie]

Apu Alberto Pizango, leader of AIDESEP, arrested upon his return to Peru for leading resistance against energy companies that lead to the massacre of indigenous peoples and the deaths of national police.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ituItWzCCC-jj8PKrI2xi...

A true Princess.  Doing far more than Pocahontas ever dreamed...

http://vimeo.com/15145593