Ashaninika delegates at the IV Continental Indigenous Summit of Abya Yala speak about uprising in Peru’s Amazon
From May 27 – 31, I attended the IV Continental Indigenous Summit as an international observer for the Alliance for Responsible Trade and the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) of which ART is a part. Over 6000 representatives of indigenous peoples from throughout the Continent and 500 observers participated in the Summit which focused on the unprecedented global economic and climate change crisis that the current economic system has produced.
The Summit took place in the context of mounting tensions between the Government of Peru and the indigenous peoples of Peru’s Amazon. For two months, over 30,000 indigenous have sustained nonviolent protests along the roads and waterways of Peru’s Amazon. Protests are in response to a series of Presidential decrees issued under the U.S.-Peru FTA implementation law that violate indigenous rights and open the way for an unprecedented expansion of new transnational petroleum, mining, logging and mono-cropping in the Amazon rainforest.
These Ashaninika delegates from Peru’s Amazon spoke eloquently of their struggle in the Amazon:
“We are the caretakers of the Amazon in the central jungle – the rivers, the trees, the plant medicines – are part of us. Many corporations come from the United States, Europe, and Argentina to exploit the jungle and make money from gas, oil, wood and gold. They use the anthropologists who speak our language and try to buy us off with promises. But this is not our way. The government wants to disapear us.”
In contrast to the dominant system, the indigenous peoples of the continent offer an alternative, life-supporting paradigm based on indigenous spirituality and lifeways rooted in profound respect for the earth and collective well-being rather than accumulation of wealth and commodification of natural resources.
Indigenous communities stressed the need to mount active resistance to safeguard remaining territories and natural resources from an economic system that aggressively pushes neocolonial policies to assure transnational corporations unfettered access to profits. Summit participants warned that in light of the global economic crisis the system will rely more and more on military force and violence.
In the ensuing days, we saw this reality play out before our eyes. At dawn on Friday, June 5, 600 police in helicopters and on foot, opened fire on non-violent indigenous protestors blocking a road in the Peruvian Amazon. Indigenous leaders called the attack the worst slaughter in 20 years, estimating up to 250 casualties.
President Alan Garcia declared martial law in the Amazon, issued arrest warrants for indigenous leaders and inflammatory statements linking the indigenous to terrorism. However, a broad national strike began on June 11th as trade unions, peasant movements and civil society organizations call for the urgent defense of the heroic struggle of the Amazonian peoples and the immediate repeal of "decrees and international treaties that hand over the nation's natural resources to transnational monopolies."
The struggle of Peru’s Amazonian indigenous peoples has generated a groundswell of national and international support for their efforts to protect this vital ecosystem, to repeal the US-Peru FTA and to insist on new economic paradigms based on respect for the earth and collective well being. To take action in solidarity with struggle in the Amazon go to