Peru:
National strike demands respect for indigenous collective rights
This past 8-10 July, the Peasant Confederation of Peru and the
National Agrarian Confederation, with the wide backing of a large
number of indigenous and peasant organizations, carried out a
country-wide protest which coincided on July 9 with a national
general strike called by the General Confederation of Workers
of Peru (CGTP).
The protest drew
together numerous communities, federations and organizations,
including Amazonian indigenous groups, and was used to voice a
range of messages. Chief among these was the demand for respect
for the collective rights of indigenous peoples affected by the
policies that the government is attempting to impose in the Amazon
region, aimed at promoting industries with destructive impacts
on the environment and inhabitants of the region, such as mining,
oil drilling and tree plantations.
Some of the demands
voiced by indigenous peoples in Peru relate to a series of draft
laws and other legislative initiatives that violate indigenous
collective rights, including the following:
* Legislative decrees
1015 and 994, aimed at coercively imposing a process by which
collectively owned indigenous community lands throughout Peru
would be divided into parcels and transferred to private individual
ownership. This would leave the land unprotected, and open the
way for the invasion of powerful economic groups, mainly representing
extractive industries. The proposed regulations would also violate
numerous articles of the Constitution, which guarantee the right
to communal property and the right of communities to autonomously
choose their own forms of organization.
* Draft law 840,
known as the “Forest Law” (see WRM Bulletin Nº 129), which is
aimed at the privatization of thousands of hectares of land in
the Amazon forest, purportedly to facilitate their “reforestation”.
The justification used is that the land in question is unforested,
idle wasteland, with no acquired rights over it. However, indigenous
organizations have countered that there are in fact no unused
wasteland areas in the Amazon forest.
* Draft law 2133,
which would authorize the sale of beaches, sandbars and marshes
along riverbanks in the Amazon region.
The Front for the
Defence and Development of the Upper Amazon (FREDESAA) maintains
that these laws would leave the Amazon region’s inhabitants landless,
converting the legitimate owners of the land into workers and
eventually slaves.
The July 9 general
strike, which left much of the country paralyzed, particularly
in the southern Andes, central and Amazon regions, was also aimed
at protesting the government’s neoliberal policies, the United
States-Peru free trade agreement, and the privatization of ports
and basic services like water.
In numerous cities
people took to the streets to demonstrate and set up roadblocks
on highways. The government mobilized 100,000 police officers
throughout the country and called out the armed forces to take
control of strategic facilities such as electric power stations,
drinking water reservoirs and airports. Around 200 protestors
were arrested during the strike.
Article based on information from the
following sources: “Unidad de los Pueblos ante
Paro en la Amazonía del Perú”, Red Ucayali, 09/07/2008,
http://peru.indymedia.org/news/2008/07/40434.php;
“El paro pegó fuerte en Perú”, Carlos Noriega, Página 12, 10/07/2008,
reprinted by bilaterals.org,
http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=12653;
“En defensa de las tierras de la Amazonía”, FREDESAA, 06/06/2008,
http://frentes-
regionales.blogspot.com/2008/06/fredesaa-frente-de-defensa-y-desarrollo.html
