Hugo Blanco, who led Peru’s first armed resistance struggle of the radical left in in the 1960s, is today a leading voice in support of the indigenous movement in the Amazon.
Peru’s indigenous alliance AIDESEP brought suit before the country’s Constitutional Tribunal to halt an oil concession in a vast area of the Amazon designated as Block 67.
The communities of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in Peru’s rainforest region of Madre de Dios announced a decision rejecting the operations of Hunt Oil on their territory.
Peru’s Amazon indigenous aliance AIDESEP hailed the government’s formation of an investigative comission on the Bagua massacre as “an important step” towards reconciliation.
Indigenous leaders in Peru’s Cordillera del CĂłndor issued a statement giving the Dorato mining company 15 days to quit the territory.
Peru issued a formal request to Interpol for the capture of Amazon indigenous leaders who have taken asylum in Nicaragua.
The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for Peru to open an “exhaustive investigation” into the Bagua massacre.
As a condition of peace with the government, Peruvian indigenous leaders are demanding a “truth commission” to investigate the June violence at Bagua, dubbed the “Amazon’s Tiananmen.”
Peru’s Prime Minister Javier Velásquez is proposing legislation that would authorize the National Police to use deadly force against civilians if they believe a violent confrontation is imminent.
New aerial photos have revealed illegal loggers operating inside the Murunahua Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon, set aside for uncontacted and highly vulnerable indigenous tribes.
The first cases of “swine flu” have just been reported among Amazonian indigenous peoples, raising fears of a devastating contagion among peoples with no immunity to outside diseases.
The state agency PeruPetro pledges to go ahead with delayed Amazon oil auctions by year’s end—despite the threat of renewed protests by indigenous groups.
