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Peru: Police, Indigenous Indians Clash in Protests Over Resources
Up to 20 people are thought to have died in the Peruvian Amazon during clashes between police and indigenous Indians protesting against oil and gas exploration on ancestral lands.
Previous protests against exploration of ancestral lands have ended in violence [EPA] Indigenous leaders told AP news agency that 15 protesters had been killed in the unrest, while officials told local radio that five police officers died.
The confrontation apparently began before dawn on Friday in Bagua in the rainforest where companies want to develop oil and natural gas projects, media reports said.
Jose Sanchez Farfan, Peru's national police director, told Reuters news agency that officials were attacked by people with guns when they tried to clear a highway blocked by protesters.
However, protesters told Reuters that police had opened fire on them from helicopters.
Rights group Amazon Watch on Monday condemned what it described as a "violent raid" by police, saying witness reports indicated the unarmed demonstrators were attacked by police while sleeping alongside a road.
It also said some wrestled guns off police officers and fought back "in self defense".
The toll is expected to climb in the latest incident, thought to be the most violent so far, as dozens of people were reported injured.
"I hold the government of [Peruvian] President Alan Garcia responsible for ordering the genocide," indigenous leader Alberto Pizango told journalists in Peru's capital, Lima, on Friday.
Protesters 'insurgency'
Demonstrations erupted in Peru's native communities in response to government moves to open the region to oil exploration and development by foreign companies under a set of measures that Garcia signed in 2007 and 2008.
The government on May 8 declared a 60-day state of emergency in areas of the Amazon, suspending constitutional guarantees in an attempt to suppress the protests, which have targeted airports, bridges and river traffic.
Protesters from a movement of 65 indigenous groups had declared an "insurgency" against the government for refusing to repeal the laws that threaten their ancestral land and resources. They later withdrew their decision.
The indigenous groups were backed by the International Federation of Human Rights, which groups 155 human rights organizations from around the world.
It called on Peru to rescind the decrees because of the government's failure to consult indigenous peoples.
Government officials acknowledge that the country's indigenous groups have historically been marginalized, but insist that Peru's constitution makes the state the owner of the country's mineral wealth.
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Show All"It's always best to forgive." Not true at all. Forgivers are responsible for most of the trouble in the world. If Bush and Cheney knew that the GUARANTEED penalty for torturing people is getting tortured yourself, they would not have tortured. If the Israelis knew that one Israeli would be killed for each Palestinian they murdered, they would not kill Palestinians. If the rapist knew that the penalty for raping is to be raped, he would not rape.
It is a MORAL DUTY to take revenge. Otherwise, the powerful will keep abusing us.
Which Big Oil company is the CIA working for this time?
LIMA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- At least 31 people died and an undetermined number of people were injured on Friday after the clashes between the Peruvian antiriot police and indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazons.
Peruvian Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas said nine policemen were shot dead, while at least 22 indigenous people also were killed in the clashes.
Sleeping indigenous people were machine gunned from helicopters...no doubt.
In a hemisphere replete many instances of indigenous people being screwed over by government to enrich the elite, Peru is the acme of this. After all, this is the country that spawned the Shining Path & the MRTA.
These indigenous people are courageous planetary heroes trying with their bare hands and bows and arrows to defend the rain forest at ground zero in the war on the environment.
Any remaining indigenous people are the only real people left on the planet and now the corporate world will just go kill them all off eventually just so those 'low lifes' don't interfere with the 'high lifes'.
I wish all corporations would become extinct at once as they are the biggest greediest criminals on the planet and money is their god.
Too bad the veggies of the world or those that demand access to all the natural resources, 'unfettered', will never know the beauty of real life.
The only way to stop them will be the rise up against them.
With any luck the Peruvian military will send in the son of Custer to solve the problem.
It's all about keeping the land unspoiled.
No doubt it's all about bulldozing roads everywhere, which brings vehicles to every nook and cranny in the Rain Forest.
After that, it's over! Corporate Goons on the payroll cause enough trouble and corporations take over the land making the "protesters" look like the problem.
I only have two words: Ollanta Humala.
The Canadian government (Harper) is just now trying to press through a Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement. Shameful!
I am from Peru living in the U.S. and I've getting info from Bagua, through Twitter and emails. The number of dead people right now goes from 85 to even more, because many dead bodies are being burned down by the Police and thrown to the rivers. President Alan Garcia and the Lima media are not showing the real picture, they are talking about 11 deaths only, but mostly they report on the Police members who are also of Indigenous heritage, by the way. Hospitals are collapsing, Police came and kidnapped some injured civilians and their destination is unknown, the Peruvian Military will take control of the area as tonight at 12, and there is chaos and violence ongoing. Please join this FACEBOOK ALERT GROUP:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=75249854388#/group.php?gid=89605273186&ref=ts
I am reporting in my blog Peruanista also.
If you work for the CIA paying off these corporate front men, you are a traitor. You deserve life imprisonment. Stop betraying the people of the U.S. and others for some business profit in Peru. There is a hell. Laugh all you want, pal. When you have to explain all this shit to God, you won't have much sense of humor.