President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) called the pardon "perhaps the most difficult decision in my life," but defended it asan "effort at reconciliation" in a polarized country, urging protesters to "turn the page." He added: "Those of us who feel democratic should not allow Alberto Fujimori to die in prison. Justice is not revenge."

But survivors of the disappeared and their advocates said that  Kuczynski's office had ignored repeated requests for meetings with a group of the kin of Fujimori's victims "I feel deceived by a president who has lied once again," said protester Carolina Huaman Oyague. "We will continue on the streets and will fight so that the judicial process under which he was tried is respected." Her cousin Dora Oyague Fierro was one of several students at La Cantuta University who were abducted and killed in 1992.

"Granting pardons is a prerogative that demands rigorous case-by-case analysis, taking into account the severity of the deeds through a transparent and inclusive process that is in line with international human rights norms," added Amerigo Incalcaterra, the South America representative for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. "Not putting victims at the center of this decision derails the progress the Peruvian state has made on truth, justice, memory and reparations." (NYT, Dec. 26)

Protests also continue to be reported from Cuzco, Chiclayo, Huaraz, Tarapoto, Iquitos and other cities around the country. (Diario Uno, Dec. 26)

PPK's culture minister, Salvador del Solar, has resigned in protest of the Fujimori pardon. (BBC News, Dec. 27) A letter issued by 230 prominent Peruvian writers, including Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, also repudiates PPK's "illegal and irresponsible conduct" in pardoning the forrner dictator. (EFE, Dec. 30)

Photo: Diario Uno

The smaller left-wing bloc in Congress was also divided, with Marisa Glave and Tania Pariona of Nuevo Perú abstaining. Nuevo Perú leader Verónika Mendoza warned that removal of PPK would allow the fujumoristas to take power and constitute a "coup." But the 10 lawmakers in Marco Arana's Frente Amplio voted to remove. In the end, there were  79 votes in favor of the motion, 19 against and 21 abstentions.

This has raised obvious accusations of a quid pro quo. Two lawmakers from PPK's own Peruanos Por el Kambio party, Vicente Zeballos and Alberto de Belaunde, resigned from the president's congresional bloc in protest of the pardon. (El Comercio, Dec. 26; BBC News, BBC News, Diario Correo, Xinhua, InfoBae, Dec. 25; The Guardian, Dec. 24; ABC, Madrid, Dec. 22; RPP, Dec. 21; Peru21, Dec. 21)

Carlos Rivera, a lawyer with Peru's Legal Defense Institute, said, "We are not looking at a humanitarian pardon, even if it has that appearance. It is a political pardon." Recalling Fujimori's convictions for overseeing death-squad massacres, Rivera called on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) to declare the pardon illegal. (Gestión, Dec. 25)

Photo: Tomate Colectivo

Some 70,000 are displaced and at least 70 dead as Peru's heaviest rains in two decades have unleashed flash-floods and landslides across the country. The National Civil Defense Institute (INDECI) is stretched to limit, with several communities left isolated by washed-out roads and bridges. The north coast has been hit the hardest, with the worst impacts in Lambayeque region, where some 40,000 are displaced. But the situation is grim both up and down the coast from there. INDECI is coordinating with the Defense Ministry to establish an "air bridge," bringing aid by helicopter to the stricken coastal cities of Ácash region. At least 15 pueblos outside Chimbote are cut off after the bridge over the Río Lacramarca was wiped out by a huayco (mudslide). Residents are also trapped in Huarmey district, and the town's hospital was destroyed. In all, 20 of Peru's 25 administrative regions are impacted.

"There's no need to panic, the government knows what it's doing," President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a televised statement, less than convincingly. But he added: "We are confronting a serious climatic problem. There hasn't been an incident of this strength along the coast of Peru since 1998."

This year's El Niño phenomenon hs resulted in a sudden and "abnormal" warming of Pacific waters, in turn bringing 10 times more rain than usual.  The disaster—which follows a period of severe drought—has fueled criticism that the country is unprepared for the growing challenges of climate change. While total precipitation has not exceeded the powerful El Niño of 1998, more rain is falling in shorter periods of time.

Peruvian meteorologist Abraham Levy described the phenomenon as a "coastal El Niño," the first in Peru since 1925. He was quick to caution: "We've had these kinds of El Niños as long as we have historical data, so it's very difficult to link climate change or…global warming to these events."

But Gen. Jorge Chávez, tasked with coordinating the relief effort, said: "We've never seen anything like this before. From one moment to the next, sea temperatures rose and winds that keep precipitation from reaching land subsided." (Peru21, March 18; The Guardian, Reuters, RPP, March 17; Granma, Chimbote en Linea, March 16)

Amnesty International denounces repression
In its annual report on Peru, Amnesty International denounced the "arbitrary detention, excessive use of force, torture and other ill-treatment" by the security forces during protests against mining projects. In the report, detailing the state of human rights across the world in 2012, Amnesty also expressed concern about the lack of consultation with indigenous peoples on the development projects impacintg their lands. (Celendin Libre, May 28)

Attorney Mar Pérez of Peru's own National Human Rights Coordinator meanwhile protested that the official report into last July's deadly police and army repression of protests against the Conga mine contains serious ommissions. The report was prepared by the Chiclayo First Provincial Fiscalía, the local prosecutor's office, in the neighboring region of Lambayeque. Pérez protested that basic forensic tests had not been carried out on the firearms used in the violence, nor the autopsies of the dead reviewed. Of five army troops cited as having fired, only two were interviewed; they admitted firing, but said they only shot into the air. The report failed to identify any personnel as culpable in the deaths. If no charges are brought in the next three months, the remaining time slated for the investigation, the case will be closed. (La Republica, May 18)

Does "prior consultation" apply in the sierra?
Controversy has recently arisen concerning whether Peru's new Prior Consultation Law applies to the Quecha and other indigenous ethnicities in Peru's sierras, or only to the more isolated indigenous groups in the lowland rainforest. Gladys Vila, president of the National Organization of Indigenous Andean and Amazonian Women of Peru (ONAMIAP), charged: "it is evident that the government doesn't want to apply the Consultation Law in Quechua communities, because the majority of mineral concessions are in the Andean area." She especially named the Conga project, and the Cañaris project in Lambayeque.

The vice president of Peru's congressional Commission on Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, Eduardo Nayap, said: "We insist that the law be applied, because Convention 169 is very clear, and Article 1 says that every people with ancestral roots, native tongue and their own customs deserves the application of prior consultation. The Andean communities sufficiently comply with these requisites, and there shouldn't even be discussion on whether they should be consulted."

Mines and Energy Minister Jorge Merino was ambiguous in addressing the charges, saying his agency will "strictly follow the law," but is waiting on the Culture Ministry to issue procedures on the law's application, "which we will without a doubt respect." (La Primera, May 8)

Iris Olivera of the Lima NGO Law, Environment, Natural Resources (DAR) called for public discussion and possible changes to the law to clarify the question before the government acts. "There is an extremely closed posture to exclude the Andean population, and it is necessary to arrive at a consensus rather than an executive proposal," she said. (La Primera, May 23)

The issue also touches on other development projects in Cajamarca. Ronderos, or members of the peasant self-defense patrol, in the region's Cortegana district denounced abuses by the company Energía SA,  subsidiary of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, concerning the third and last community meeting held April 30 to inform local residents about the planned Chadín 2 hydro-electric project. The ronderos said the company packed the meeting with its supporters, who were bussed in and each paid 20 soles (about $7) to participate. (Celendin Libre, May 10)

Humala pledges to speed investment
President Ollanta Humala said May 24 that he will prioritize investments after the economy hit a "bump in the road" with unexpectedly slow growth in the first quarter of 2013. "We have decided to declare investments in the country to be of national interest," Humala told reporters. The president faced pressure from the international media in April after his administration said it was considering buying a stake in the Peruvian assets of Spanish energy firm Repsol. The government abandoned the plan in May. 

Peru's economy has been growing at one of the fastest clips in Latin America—6.3% last year. "What we are experiencing, particularly in the first semester of this year, is a bump in the road in the growth of economic productivity in large part because of external factors and a timidity in investing, especially in areas like mining," Humala said. "These are problems that always affect Peru." (Reuters, May 24)

In La Libertad region, bordering Cajamarca on the west, the comuneros (communal peasants) of Quiruvilca municipality are opposing Toronto-based Barrick Gold’s plans to mine on alpine lakes at a place called Lagunas Sur. On Feb. 18, the leader of the rondas campesinas (peasant self-defense patrols) in Quiruvilca, Vicente Burgos, announced that his followers are prepared to blockade the road to the regional capital Trujillo if the project is not dropped.

The mayor of the local province of Santiago de Chuco, Juan Gabriel Alipio, stopped short of demanding a halt to the project, but said the government must agree to a dialogue on protection of local water sources, warning of the potential for deadly violence as seen in Cajamarca last year. “The president, Ollanta Humala, has to place this grave problem on his agenda,” he said. (La Republica, Feb. 18 via Celendin Libre)

On Feb. 16, delegations of comuneros and ronderos from Cajamarca and Cañaris, a locale across the border in Lamayeque deparrtment also threatened by a mining project, appeared before Peru’s Congress in Lima to demand that the government cancel both projects. Cristobal Barrios, president of San Juan de Cañaris campesino community, called on the president to respect the community’s consulta of Sept. 30, 2012, in which the project was rejected. (Servindi, Feb. 16)

Two recent videos on anti-mining struggles in Peru’s north, A Tajo Abierto and Majaz, los Guardianes del Agua, are winning much interest in Peru’s social media.

The nearby Conga project is officially suspended following a long campaign of protest by local campesinos. However, Newmont Mining of Colorado, majority owner of Yanacocha, recently announced that it will nonetheless spend $150 million on the $4.8 billion gold-copper project this year. Russell Ball, CFO of Newmont Mining, the world’s number two gold producer, said the company expects to spend $80 million on equipment, $40 million in reservoir construction, and nearly $30 million in “community and social-related issues” related to the Conga project. (Mining.com, Jan. 25)

With conflict growing over the Canadian-owned Cañaris mining project in neighboring Lambeyeque region, lawmaker Verónica Mendoza has formally called upon the Vice-ministry of Interculturality to make clear what measures were taken to assure that the project has complied with Peru’s new Prior Consultation law. She wrote: “The indigenous peoples of Cañaris have expressed various demands related to mining activities that would take place in their territories, and it is the State that should promote an intercultural dialogue with respect to their rights as indigenous communities within the framework of ILO Convention 169 of the ILO and the Prior Consultation Law Act.” (Verónika Mendoza blog, Feb. 7) 

Mendoza, who pushed heavily for the law in Peru’s congress, is one of several lawmakers from the ruling Gana Perú coalition, led by President Ollanta Humala’s Nationalst Party, who publicly broke from the coalition last year as it has tilted right. (RPP, June 4, 2012)

Cañaris zone in “permanent resistance”
In the wake of a violent confrontation with National Police near the Canadian-owned Cañaris mine site last month in neighboring Lambayeque region, local campesino communities have declared a state of “permenant mobilization and resistance.” The announcement came Feb. 5, after a “dialogue table” brokered by the national government with the mine and traditional village authorities broke down. The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, as Peru’s cabinet is known, initiated the dialogue after the confrontation, but village leaders have now suspended it, accusing government negotiators of dismissing their demands.

After a meeting in the city of Chiclayo, the statement was jointly issued by the communities of San Juan de Cañaris, San Isidro Labrador de Marayhuaca, José Carlos Mariátegui and San Pablo de Incahuasi. While early accounts had two campesinos injured by blows to the head in the Jan. 25 confrontation, community leaders now say one suffered a bullet wound. (La Republica, Servindi, Feb. 5; Celendin Libre, Jan. 25)

Militarization of mineral zones
In the prelude to the confrontation, Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza publicly stated his intention to beef up the National Police presence in areas of the country where there are mining-related conflicts, singling out Lambayeque. Said Pedraza: “The mining conflict is going to be permanent, and therefore we have the necessity to create police fronts to guarantee…mineral investment and also peaceful protest.” (RPP, Jan. 22)

The government is meanwhile pledging more investment in social programs for the mineral-rich but marginalized northern regions. Cabinet chief Juan Jiménez Mayor said Feb. 5 that the central government is prepared to assist in any development project proposed by the Cajamarca regional government. Cajamarca’s authorities have long been bitterly at odds with Lima over the Conga project. (El Peruano, Feb. 5)

The New York Times’ Dot Earth blog on Jan. 23 made note of further evidence of a growing climate crisis in the Andes, citing a new paper published in The Cyrosphere journal (PDF), which found that glaciers throughout the tropical Andes have been melting in the last 30 years at a faster rate than at any time since the peak of the “Little Ice Age” 300 years ago.

The march’s most visible leader was Genaro Vera Roalcaba, president of the Chancay-Lambayeque Irrigation District, but the CULL also brings together Lambayeque’s rondas campesinas (peasant self-defense patrols) and urban trade union leaders in Chiclayo. (Celendin Libre, Dec. 22)

La Zanja company is owned by Peru’s largest mining group, Buenaventura, which is also a major investor in Cajamarca’s controversial Conga mine project, which has resulted in months of strikes and protests.