Massacre in the Amazon: The U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement Sparks a Battle Over Land and Resources

Raúl Zibechi, Americas Program, June 16, 2009

On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands—a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.

Three MI-17 helicopters took off from the base of the National Police in El Milagro at six in the morning of Friday, June 5. They flew over Devil's Curve, the part of the highway that joins the jungle with the northern coast, which had been occupied for the past 10 days by some 5,000 Awajún and Wampi indigenous peoples. The copters launched tear gas on the crowd (other versions say that they also shot machine guns), while simultaneously a group of agents attacked the road block by ground, firing AKM rifles. A hundred people were wounded by gunshot and between 20-25 were killed.

The population of the nearby city of Bagua, some thousand kilometers northeast of Lima near the border with Ecuador, came out into the streets to support the indigenous people's demonstration, setting fire to state institutions and local office of the official party APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana). Several police officers were attacked and killed in the counter-attack, and other indigenous protestors were killed by police. At the same time, a group of 38 police who were guarding an oil station in the Amazon were taken hostage. Some were killed by their captors, while some 1,000 Indians threatened to set fire to Station Number 6 of the northern Peruvian oil pipeline.


The versions are contradictory. The government claimed days after the events that there are 11 indigenous dead and 23 police. The indigenous organizations reported 50 dead among their ranks and up to 400 disappeared. According to witnesses, the military burned bodies and threw them into the river to hide the massacre, and also took prisoners among the wounded in the hospitals. In any case, what is certain is that the government sent the armed forces to evict a peaceful protest that had been going on for 57 days in the jungle regions of five departments: Amazonas, Cusco, Loreto, San Martin, and Ucayali.

The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), part of the Organization of American States, condemned the violent acts on June 8 and reminded the Peruvian government of its obligation to clear up the facts and to compensate for the consequences and called on both sides to promote a process of dialogue.1 On June 9, the National Coordination of Human Rights announced that it found a series of irregularities and possible human rights violations in the Bagua area. It denounced the government's refusal to divulge what police are in charge of the investigation of the events, and expressed concern for the situation of 25 detained at the El Milagro base and the 99 arrested since a curfew was imposed in Bagua.2

President Garcia accused the Indians of being "terrorists" and spoke of an "international conspiracy," in which, according to government ministers, Bolivia and Venezuela are involved because as oil- and gas-producing countries they want to keep Peru from exploiting these resources and becoming a competitor.3 Just a few weeks ago, Peru granted asylum to the anti-Chavez leader, Venezuelan Manuel Rosas, accused of corruption, and three former Bolivian ministers from the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lazada prosecuted for the death of nearly 700 persons during the "gas war" of October 2003.

On Tuesday, June 9, the minister of Women and Social Development, Carmen Vildoso, resigned in protest of the way the government handled the situation. According to Prime Minister Yehude Simon, her resignation was due to her disapproval of a publicity spot emitted by the government in which, with the background of photos of dead police and indigenous people throwing spears and arrows, it presented the natives as "savages," "fierce assassins," and "extremists" that follow "international orders" to "stop Peru's development" and keep the country from taking advantage of its oil." The spot claims there was no repression but rather "a savage assassination of humble policemen."4

The leader of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP, by its Spanish initials), that groups some 300,000 indigenous persons and 1,350 communities, Albert Pizango, was considered a "delinquent" by the Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas and ordered captured. Pizango sought asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima. The parliamentary group of the official party accused the left, the leader of the Nationalist Party of Peru Ollanta Humala, and the media in the Amazon region of "having induced acts of violence so that the natives would attack the police," and threatened to accuse them of terrorism.
History of the Conflict

The conflict began on April 9, when Amazon peoples mobilized to block the highways and gas and oil pipelines to protest the implementation of a series of decrees passed to implement the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. But the situation got worse on June 4, when the APRA stopped Congress from debating repeal of some laws questioned by the indigenous peoples that had already been declared unconstitutional by a Constitutions Commission.

The FTA with the United States was negotiated beginning in May of 2004 under the government of Alejandro Toledo (2000-2005). The treaty was slated to replace the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act signed in 2002 and in effect until December of 2006. The FTA eliminated obstacles to trade and facilitated access to goods and services and investment flows. Modeled on the North American free Trade Agreement, it also includes a broad range of issues linked to intellectual property, public contracting and services, and dispute resolution.5

The U.S-Peru FTA was signed on Dec. 8, 2005 in Washington by then-Presidents George W. Bush and Alan Garcia. In June of 2006 it was ratified by Peru and in December of 2007 by the U.S. Congress. On Feb 1, 2009, the agreement went into effect after Bush and Garcia signed it on January 16 of that year.

The signing of the FTA caused huge mobilizations in 2005, especially among peasant farmers who were the most harmed by the elimination of tariffs and trade protections. Although the government said it would provide compensation to producers, these never arrived. On February 18, 2008 they staged a National Agrarian Stoppage with road blocks throughout the country that led to four dead from police repression and the imposition of a state of emergency in eight provinces.

On October 28, 2007, Alan Garcia published a long article in the daily paper El Comercio of Lima under the title "The Syndrome of the Orchard Dog." Garcia described nature as a resource, and maintained that to refuse to exploit it was foolish, ignoring the debate over the conservation of the Amazon region. "The old anti-capitalist communist of the 19th century disguised himself as a protectionist in the 20th century, and donned the label of an environmentalist in the 21st century."

In his opinion, those who oppose the intensive exploitation of the Amazon region are like an orchard dog, that "doesn't eat or let anyone else eat."

"There are millions of hectares that the communities and associations have not cultivated or will cultivate, as well as hundreds of mineral deposits that cannot be worked and millions of hectares of sea that cannot be used for aquaculture and production. The rivers that run down both sides of the mountain range are a fortune that pours into the ocean without producing electric energy," Garcia states in the article.

"The first resource is the Amazon," he maintains. There are 63 million hectares that he proposes be parceled out into large properties of "5,000, 10,000, or 20,000 hectares, since in less land there is no formal investment long term and high technology."

On the land, he notes that one should not "deliver small lots of land to poor families that do not have a penny to invest," and that "this same land sold in large lots will attract technology." He cares little that these lands are the collective property of the communities, since in his opinion they are just "idle lands because the owner does not have the training or the resources economic, that's why their property is feigned."
The Free Trade Agreement and the Legislative Decrees

Based on this logic of converting everything into merchandise, the government asked Congress for faculties to legislate issues relative to the implementation of the FTA through Legislative Decrees (LD). On December 19, 2007, Congress gave full faculties to the government to legislate for six months by decree issues related to the FTA, through Law 29157. Mandated by these powers, the executive drafted 99 laws that are at the root of the current conflict.

An independent judicial report distributed by Oxfam America concludes that the executive branch took advantage of the powers granted it by Congress "to issue a large number of norms with no or very little effective links to the FTA, distorting and alienating the terms of the delegation of powers approved by Congress."6

Consequently, the report establishes that "such decrees can be qualified as unconstitutional for reasons of form," and that therefore "merits their derogation" by Congress or the Constitutional Tribunal. It also notes that through the 99 LDs "a substantial reform of the organizational and jurisdictional framework of various government entities has been attempted, as well as the regulatory framework applicable to economic activities of special relevance," without strict relation to the FTA.7

The most controversial of the degrees are numbers 1015 and 1073, declared unconstitutional by the Oxfam report. Theses decrees modify the number of votes required to sell communal lands (just three votes could place community land up for sale). Number 1015 was repealed by Congress in August of 2008. Decree 1064 (legal Framework for Use of Agrarian Lands), abolishes the requirement of the previous agreement to undertake projects and is also considered unconstitutional.

LD 1083 (Promotion of Efficient Use and Conservation of Hydraulic Resources) favors the privatization of water to large consumers such as mining companies. LD 1081, 1079, and 1020 deregulate diverse aspects of legislation in areas of mining, timber, and hydrocarbon exploitation. But it is LD 1090 (Forestry and Woodland Fauna Law) that is at the crux of the debate. It leaves out of the forestry framework 45 million hectares, that is, 64% of the forests of Peru, including their biodiversity in flora and fauna, making it possible to sell them to transnational corporations.

On April 9, the 1,350 communities that make up the AIDESEP agreed to start demonstrating within their communities. Prime Minister Simon called the April 18 indigenous demands "capricious." On May 5, the bishops of eight Catholic dioceses demanded that President Alan Garcia repeal the decrees because they consider them "a threat to the Amazon." On May 10, the government decreed a State of Emergency in five regions of the country where road blocks and blockages of ports and oil pipelines were taking place.

On May 19, the Constitution Commission of parliament declared LD 1090 unconstitutional. The report of the Commission8 concludes that the decree "does not respect the limitations that are established in Articles 101 and 104 of the Political Constitution, in terms of areas that cannot be legislated." It also notes that "it goes against Article 66 of the constitution, by regulating in the area of natural resources, that is exclusively reserved for the organic law."

In short, legislators agreed that the executive branch does not have the faculties to legislate by decree in certain areas according to the constitution, and that must be done in Congress. The decision of the Commission must still be debated in Congress, but on May 22 the minister of justice, Rosario Fernandez, denounced Alberto Pizango, leader of the AIDESEP, for sedition and conspiracy. On May 26, Awaj'un and Wampis took over the Belaunde Terry highway on Devil's Curve and some 1,200 indigenous people surrounded Station 6.

On May 26, there was a huge demonstration in Lima in support of the Amazon struggle. On May 28, community landholders from the Cusco jungle took over a second valve of the gas pipeline of Kamisea. On June 1, industrialists and exporters demanded that the government "apply the law" to free the highways and pipelines in the Amazon. On June 2, the president of the Permanent Forum of the United Nations on Indigenous Questions asked the Peruvian government to "immediately suspend the state of siege against indigenous communities and organizations and "avoid any action, such as military intervention, that could increase the conflict."9

On June 4, the APRA majority of parliament decided to suspend the debate on the unconstitutionality of LD 1090. The People's Defender presented a grievance of unconstitutionality against LD 1064. On June 5, 639 agents of Special Operatives and staff of the armed forces attacked the indigenous on Devil's Curve with dozens of dead, and hundreds of wounded and disappeared.

The Amazon protest has not died down since the massacre—nearly all the 56 Amazon indigenous peoples reaffirmed that they would continue the road blocks until the government repeals the Legislative Decrees that the violate Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and their rights over their territories. According to their testimonies, the situation is explosive. Alan Garcia has a history of violent repression. Under his first presidency in 1986, the armed forces forcefully put down a coordinated prison riot that left over a hundred prisoners shot dead. In this context, the Peruvian government could very well increase the violence unleashed on the indigenous movement.

Hugo Blanco, a well-known Peruvian movement activist and editor of the monthly Lucha Indígena, takes a long look in a recent editorial: "After 500 years of silencing, the Amazon peoples receive the support of the peoples of Peru and the world. It could be the greatest achievement of this campaign has been to make these nationalities visible, weaving links between diverse sectors of the country, as divided as those who dominate. By defending the Amazon we are defending the life of all of humanity; and by not ceding to the deceit of the government, they are rewriting history, recuperating for all the sense of the word dignity."
End Notes

1. Servindi, June 9, 2009.
2. Idem.
3. La Jornada, June 7, 2009 base on reports from Reuters, AFP, and DPA.
4. Página 12, June 10, 2009.
5. Peru Gets its Free Trade Agreement with the United States, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4726.
6. Francisco Eguiguren, ob. cit. p. 96.
7. Idem p. 97.
8. "Informe sobre DL 1090. Comisión de Constitución y Reglamento," May 19, 2009 at www.servindi.org.
9. Chronology taken from Lucha Indígena No. 35 and Ana Maria Vidal ob. cit.

Translated for the Americas Program by Laura Carlsen.

Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for Brecha of Montevideo, Uruguay, lecturer and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to several social groups. He writes the monthly "Zibechi Report" for the Americas Program (www.americasprogram.org).

To reprint this article, please contact americas@ciponline.org. The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of the CIP Americas Program or the Center for International Policy.


Sources

AIDESEP (Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana): www.aidesep.org.

Ana María Vidal, “Crónica de una matanza anunciada,” Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, at www.lahaine.org.

APRODEH (Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos): www.aprodeh.org.

CAOI (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas) www.minkandina.org.

Diario el Comercio: www.elcomercio.com.pe.

Diario La República: www.larepublica.pe.

Francisco Eguiguren, “Análisis de la conformidad constitucional del uso de las facultades legislativas otorgadas por el Congreso al Poder Ejecutivo mediante la Ley No. 29157,” written at the behest of OXFAM America, August 5, 2008.

Periódico Lucha Indígena No. 34, June, 2009.

Servindi (Servicios en Comunicación Intercultural): www.servindi.org.

For More Information

Cochabamba
From Water War to Water Management
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6154

Plan 3000
Resistance and Social Change at the Heart of Racism
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6093

Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5965

Much Ado About Nothing?

By William Blum, Information Clearing House, July 6, 2009

What is there about the Iranian election of June 12 that has led to it being one of the leading stories in media around the world every day since? Elections whose results are seriously challenged have taken place in most countries at one time or another in recent decades. Countless Americans believe that the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by the Republicans, and not just inside the voting machines and in the counting process, but prior to the actual voting as well with numerous Republican Party dirty tricks designed to keep poor and black voters off voting lists or away from polling stations. The fact that large numbers of Americans did not take to the streets day after day in protest, as in Iran, is not something we can be proud of. Perhaps if the CIA, the Agency for International Development (AID), several US government-run radio stations, and various other organizations supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (which was created to serve as a front for the CIA, literally) had been active in the United States, as they have been for years in Iran, major street protests would have taken place in the United States.

The classic "outside agitators" can not only foment dissent through propaganda, adding to already existing dissent, but they can serve to mobilize the public to strongly demonstrate against the government. In 1953, when the CIA overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, they paid people to agitate in front of Mossadegh's residence and elsewhere and engage in acts of violence; some pretended to be supporters of Mossadegh while engaging in anti-religious actions. And it worked, remarkably well.[1] Since the end of World War II, the United States has seriously intervened in some 30 elections around the world, adding a new twist this time, twittering. The State Department asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its service to keep information flowing from inside Iran, helping to mobilize protesters.[2] The New York Times reported: "An article published by the Web site True/Slant highlighted some of the biggest errors on Twitter that were quickly repeated and amplified by bloggers: that three million protested in Tehran last weekend (more like a few hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi was under house arrest (he was being watched); that the president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid last Saturday (not so)." [3]

In recent years, the United States has been patrolling the waters surrounding Iran with warships, halting Iranian ships to check for arms shipments to Hamas or for other illegal reasons, financing and "educating" Iranian dissidents, using Iranian groups to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran, kidnaping Iranian diplomats in Iraq, kidnaping Iranian military personnel in Iran and taking them to Iraq, continually spying and recruiting within Iran, manipulating Iran's currency and international financial transactions, and imposing various economic and political sanctions against the country.[4]

"I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," said US President Barack Obama with a straight face on June 23. "Some in the Iranian government [have been] accusing the United States and others outside of Iran of instigating protests over the elections. These accusations are patently false and absurd."[5]

"Never believe anything until it's officially denied," British writer Claud Cockburn famously said.

In his world-prominent speech to the Middle East on June 4, Obama mentioned that "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government." So we have the president of the United States admitting to a previous overthrow of the Iranian government while the United States is in the very midst of trying to overthrow the current Iranian government. This will serve as the best example of hypocrisy that's come along in quite a while.

So why the big international fuss over the Iranian election and street protests? There's only one answer. The obvious one. The announced winner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a Washington ODE, an Officially Designated Enemy, for not sufficiently respecting the Empire and its Israeli partner-in-crime; indeed, Ahmadinejad is one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy in the world.

So ingrained is this ODE response built into Washington's world view that it appears to matter not at all that Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main opponent in the election and very much supported by the protesters, while prime minister 1981-89, bore large responsibility for the attacks on the US embassy and military barracks in Beirut in 1983, which took the lives of more than 200 Americans, and the 1988 truck bombing of a US Navy installation in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons. Remarkably, a search of US newspaper and broadcast sources shows no mention of this during the current protests.[6] However, the Washington Post saw fit to run a story on June 27 that declared: "the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms."

Can it be that no one in the Obama administration knows of Mousavi's background? And do none of them know about the violent government repression on June 5 in Peru of the peaceful protests organized in response to the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement? A massacre that took the lives of between 20 and 25 indigenous people in the Amazon and wounded another 100.[7] The Obama administration was silent on the Peruvian massacre because the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, is not an ODE.

And neither is Mousavi, despite his anti-American terrorist deeds, because he's opposed to Ahmadinejad, who competes with Hugo Chavez to be Washington's Number One ODE. Time magazine calls Mousavi a "moderate", and goes on to add: "It has to be assumed that the Iranian presidential election was rigged," offering as much evidence as the Iranian protestors; i.e., none at all.[8] It cannot of course be proven that the Iranian election was totally honest, but the arguments given to support the charge of fraud are not very impressive, such as the much-repeated fact that the results were announced very soon after the polls closed. For decades in various countries election results have been condemned for being withheld for many hours or days. Some kind of dishonesty must be going on behind the scenes during the long delay it was argued. So now we're asked to believe that some kind of dishonesty must be going on because the results were released so quickly. It should be noted that the ballots listed only one electoral contest, with but four candidates.

Phil Wilayto, American peace activist and author of a book on Iran, has observed:

Ahmadinejad, himself born into rural poverty, clearly has the support of the poorer classes, especially in the countryside, where nearly half the population lives. Why? In part because he pays attention to them, makes sure they receive some benefits from the government and treats them and their religious views and traditions with respect. Mousavi, on the other hand, the son of an urban merchant, clearly appeals more to the urban middle classes, especially the college-educated youth. This being so, why would anyone be surprised that Ahmadinejad carried the vote by a clear majority? Are there now more yuppies in Iran than poor people?[9]

All of which is of course not to say that Iran is not a relatively repressive society on social and religious issues, and it's this underlying reality which likely feeds much of the protest; indeed, many of the protesters may not even have strong views about the election per se, particularly since both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are members of the establishment, neither is any threat to the Islamic theocracy, and the election can be seen as the kind of power struggle you find in virtually every country. But that is not the issue I'm concerned with here. The issue is Washington's long-standing goal of regime change. If the exact same electoral outcome had taken place in a country that is an ally of the United States, how much of all the accusatory news coverage and speeches would have taken place? In fact, the exact same thing did happen in a country that is an ally of the United States, three years ago when Felipe Calderon appeared to have stolen the presidential election in Mexico and there were daily large protests for more than two months; but the American and international condemnation was virtually non-existent compared to what we see today in regard to Iran.

Iranian leaders undertook a recount of a random ten per cent of ballots and recertified Ahmadinejad as the winner. How honest the recount was I have no idea, but it's more than Americans got in 2000 and 2004.

By what standard shall we judge Barack Obama?

Many of my readers have been upset with me for my criticisms of President Obama's policies. Following my last two reports, more than a dozen have asked to be removed from my mailing list. But if you share my view that the numerous atrocities US foreign policy is responsible for constitute the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity and happiness, then I think you have to want leaders who are unambiguously opposed to America's military adventures, because those interventions are unambiguously harmful. There's nothing good to be said about dropping powerful bombs on crowds of innocent people, invading their land, overthrowing their government, occupying the country, breaking down the doors of the citizens, killing the father, raping the mother, traumatizing the children, torturing those opposed to all this ... Barack Obama has no problem with this, if we judge him by his policies and not his rhetoric.

And neither does Al Franken, who's about to become a Democratic Senator from Minnesota. The former Saturday Night Live comedian would like you to believe that he’s been against the war in Iraq since it began, but he's gone to Iraq four times to entertain the troops. Does that make sense? Why does the military bring entertainers to soldiers? To lift the soldiers' spirits. Why does the military want to lift the soldiers’ spirits? A happier soldier does his job better. And what’s the soldier’s job? All the charming things listed above. Doesn't Franken know what these guys do? He criticized the Bush administration because they “failed to send enough troops to do the job right.”[10] What “job” did the man think the troops were sent to do that had not been performed to his standards because of lack of manpower? Did he want them to be more efficient at killing Iraqis who resisted the occupation?

Franken has been lifting soldiers' spirits for a long time. This past March he was honored by the United Service Organization (USO) for his ten years of entertaining troops abroad. That includes Kosovo in 1999, as imperialist an occupation as you'll want to see. He called his USO experience "one of the best things I've ever done."[11] Franken has also spoken at West Point, encouraging the next generation of imperialist warriors. Is this a man to challenge the militarization of America at home and abroad? No more so than Obama.

Tom Hayden wrote this about Franken in 2005 when Franken had a regular program on the Air America radio network:

Is anyone else disappointed with Al Franken's daily defense of the continued war in Iraq? Not Bush's version of the war, because that would undermine Air America's laudable purpose of rallying an anti-Bush audience. But, well, Kerry's version of the war, one that can be better managed and won, somehow with better body armor and fewer torture cells. This morning Franken was endorsing Sen. Joe Biden's proposal to send 5,000 NATO troops to close the Syrian-Iraq border, bring in foreign trainers for the Iraqi officer corps, and put Iraqis to work cleaning up the destruction of our invasion. ... Now that Bush has manipulated us into the invasion, Franken thinks we have no choice but to ... stay until we crush the insurgents. It's a humanitarian excuse for open-ended American occupation. And it's shared widely by the professional political and pundit class who think of themselves as the conscience of the American establishment and the leadership of the Democratic Party.[12]

I know, I know, I'm taking away all your heroes. But such people shouldn't be your heroes. You can learn to see through the liberal, Democratic Party apologists for the empire. Only a week ago, documents released by the Nixon Library in California revealed that five days before US and South Vietnamese troops made their surprise invasion of Cambodia on April 29, 1970 — which elicited widespread, angry protests in the US, resulting in the fatal shootings by the National Guard of students at Kent State University in Ohio — President Richard Nixon got approval for the invasion from the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Stennis of Mississippi. Stennis told the president: "I will be with you. ... I commend you for what you are doing."[13]

Long live the Cold War

President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown in a military coup June 28 because he was about to conduct a non-binding survey of the population, asking the question: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?" One of the issues that Zelaya hoped a new constitution would deal with is the limiting of the presidency to one four-year term. He also expressed the need for other constitutional changes to make it possible for him to carry out policies to improve the life of the poor; in countries like Honduras, the law is not generally crafted for that end.

At this writing it's not clear how matters will turn out in Honduras, but the following should be noted: the United States, by its own admission, was fully aware for weeks of the Honduran military's plan to overthrow Zelaya. Washington says it tried its best to change the mind of the plotters. It's difficult to believe that this proved impossible. During the Cold War it was said, with much justification, that the United States could discourage a coup in Latin America with "a frown". The Honduran and American military establishments have long been on very fraternal terms. And it must be asked: In what way and to what extent did the United States warn Zelaya of the impending coup? And what protection did it offer him? The response to the coup from the Obama administration can be described with adjectives such as lukewarm, proper but belated, and mixed. It is not unthinkable that the United States gave the military plotters the go-ahead, telling them to keep the traditional "golpe" bloodiness to a minimum. Zelaya was elected to office as the candidate of a conservative party; he then, surprisingly, moved to the left and became a strong critic of a number of Washington policies, and an ally of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, both of whom the Bush administration tried to overthrow and assassinate.

Following the coup, National Public Radio (NPR) showed once again why progressives refer to it as National Pentagon Radio. The station's leading news anchor, Robert Siegel, interviewed Johanna Mendelson Forman, of the conservative think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Siegel: "There hasn't been a coup in Latin America for quite a while."

Forman: "I think the last one was in 1983"

Siegel did not correct her.[14]

This is ignorance of considerable degree. There was a coup in Venezuela in 2002 that briefly overthrew Hugo Chavez, a coup in Haiti in 2004 that permanently overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and a coup in Panama in 1989 that permanently overthrew Manuel Noriega. Is it because the US was closely involved in all three coups that they have been thrown down the Orwellian Memory Hole?

Notes

1. William Blum, Killing Hope, chapter 9
2. Associated Press, June 16, 2009
3. New York Times, June 21, 2009
4. See Seymour Hersh, New Yorker magazine, June 29, 2008; ABC News, May 22, 2007; and Paul Craig Roberts in CounterPunch, June 19-21, 2009 for descriptions of some of these and other anti-Iran covert activities.
5. White House press conference, June 23, 2009
6. The only mention is by Jeff Stein in "CQ Politics" [Congressional Quarterly], online, June 22, 2009, "according to former CIA and military officials".
7. Center for International Policy (Washington, DC) report, June 16, 2009
8. Time magazine, June 29, 2009, p.26
9. AlterNet.org, June 14, 2009; Wilayto is the author of "In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic"
10. Washington Post, February 16, 2004
11. Star Tribune (Minneapolis), March 26, 2009
12. Huffington Post, sometime in June 2005, but it may no longer be there.
13. Washington Post, June 30, 2009
14. NPR, All Things Considered, June 29, 2009

William Blum is the author of:

* Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
* Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
* West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
* Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

From Amazon to Andes: Indigenous struggle shakes up Peru

By Berta Joubert-Ceci, Workers World, June 21, 2009

On June 5, Peruvian President Alan Garcia unleashed his heavily armed repressive forces against Indigenous people in that country’s Amazonian region. They had been defending that enormous source of natural wealth against the voraciousness of transnational corporations. Ironically, that same day had been designated by the United Nations as World Environment Day to motivate awareness of environmental issues and encourage political action.

The attacks took place in the Curva del Diablo (Curve of the Devil), a section of the highway that links the jungle with the northern part of the country. For 10 days, thousands of Awajún and Wampis people had been occupying and blockading the road as a way to put pressure on the government.

At dawn, three Peruvian National Police helicopters flew over the region dropping teargas and shooting at the defenseless multitude. At the same time, police on the ground armed with rifles were also shooting at them. To this day, there is still no final and clear account of the casualties. The capitalist media, which has all along been hostile to the Indigenous people and loyal to the government, echoed Garcia’s accusation that the Indigenous are “terrorists” and reported that they had murdered 24 police, while only nine Indigenous had died.

However, a contradictory report appeared June 13 in Lucha Indígena magazine, edited by Hugo Blanco, from a person who was in Bagua—the site of the massacre. It replicates what many sources in the area are saying. “The corpses of the Natives were scattered throughout the nearby highway and in the vicinity of the Curve of the Devil. The police took control, imposed curfew, began to pile up the corpses, burning them in the highway, others were transferred to undetermined places, put in bags and transferred to the three police helicopters. Many of the corpses of these humble Peruvians were thrown into the Marañón and Utcubamba Rivers. The mestizos of Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande estimate a minimum of 200 to 300 dead civilians.” (www.luchaindigena.com)

Even though the police refused to allow journalists, relatives and other Indigenous persons into the area, an impressive amount of information has been provided by alternative sources, including a Belgian journalist who was present. It includes video footage on YouTube that has been seen around the world.

What caused the massacre?

On April 9, after futile attempts to negotiate with the government, the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP)—an organization representing 300,000 Indigenous people and 1,350 communities—began mobilizing the Amazonian people. The issue was the government’s implementation of several laws that the Indigenous say will privatize and endanger the Amazon and the livelihood of the numerous Native communities.

They started taking over highways, small airports, and gas and oil pipelines and interrupting river transport. These actions effectively paralyzed the region and disrupted the production and transportation of hydrocarbons throughout the area.

The Amazonian people were especially demanding the repeal of the new Law on Forestry and Wildlife and the Law on Water Resources, decrees 1090 and 1064. These laws would open up the Amazon area to increasing mineral, oil, gas and timber exploitation.

To put this into context, the Peruvian people of the Amazon comprise 11 percent of the total population. They reside in the north, center and southeast of the country, in the largest of Peru’s three natural resources areas.

These laws were imposed illegally. Under both Peruvian and U.N. laws of protection for Indigenous people, it is required that any regulation that could affect their communities must be negotiated first with those affected communities.

Instead, President Garcia imposed them in order to satisfy the requirements of Peru’s Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. This agreement, called the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA) was signed in 2006 and took effect on Feb. 1. The PTPA website says this agreement will “result in significant liberalization of trade in goods and services between the U.S. and Peru.... Peru immediately eliminated most of its tariffs on U.S. exports.... [It also] includes important disciplines relating to ... trade facilitation, technical barriers to trade, government procurement, services, investment, telecommunications, electronic commerce, intellectual property rights, and labor and environmental protection.” (www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements)

Solidarity brings concessions

An outpouring of solidarity with the Indigenous followed in the form of both statements and demonstrations. This support from all organized social sectors and progressive parties not only in Peru but internationally forced a concession from the Garcia government. On the evening of June 15, it was announced that the government would take measures the following day to repeal decrees 1090 and 1064.

In reaction to this news, the acting president of AIDESEP, Daysi Zapata, stated that “The government reaction is late. We want to see realities. ... The people are tired of promises ... there is great distrust.” She demanded an end to the persecution of the four leaders of the organization and an end to the state of emergency in Bagua. Zapata has been at the forefront of the organization since June 9 when its president, Alberto Pizango, had to take political refuge in the Nicaraguan Embassy because of death threats.

Most likely the government’s decision was influenced by the many demands that Garcia and all his administration resign. The rise of general mobilizations throughout the whole country on behalf of the Amazonian people is something that has never happened before. Probably Garcia thinks that repealing the laws, if in fact it does happen, will exonerate him. However, protests continue to grow daily.

An article by Carlos Quiroz, a bilingual blogger based in Washington who has constant contact with the Peruvian organizations, reported an interview with Zapata on Monday night after the government’s decision was known. Zapata says: “They want to silence us by incarcerating us, but that is useless because when one leader goes to prison, many more leaders will rise after them.” Referring to the massive character of the protests, she said: “Not a single region is staying quiet; they are protesting for justice after the deaths of our brothers and sisters in Bagua and for the repeal of the Garcia decrees that are so negative to our Indigenous peoples.”

In the same article Quiroz mentions that “Indigenous leader Miguel Palacin had previously told me that [a new constitution] is one of the Indigenous movement’s goals right now, following the example of neighboring Ecuador and Bolivia.” (peruanista.blogspot.com)

Indigenous uprisings in both those countries led to the removal of right-wing neoliberal governments and the installation of progressive presidents who then, together with the input of the people, created new constitutions. Will it happen in Peru?

E-mail: bjceci@workers.org

Next: Who is Alan Garcia? Washington’s silence.

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