Peru – Page 30 – CounterVortex

The Andes

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Aymara leader Walter Aduviri was elected governor of Peru's Puno region—just two days after the country's Supreme Court declared void a seven-year prison term against him for "disturbing public order" during a 2011 protest wave in which he was the principal leader. Aduviri had carried out his campaign from hiding, and only emerged from clandestinity with announcement of the high court ruling. He will now face a new trial on the charges related to the so-called "Aymarazo"—an Aymara uprising against an unpopular mineral development project, which was ultimately suspended. His Mi Casita Movement for Regional Integration and Development won 48% of the vote in the race, ahead of the other candidates. It also took several municipal races in Puno region. (Photo: Diario Uno)

The Andes

JUAREZ

Peru's Supreme Court revoked the pardon of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, ordering him back to prison. His supporters in Congress are drafting a law to make the pardon permanent, but this is on dubious constitutional grounds and violates international human rights treaties. Meanwhile, survivors of the Fujimori-era "dirty war" continue to seek justice for the crimes of that period. One campaign is to block right-wing candidate Daniel Urresti, accused in the assassination of journalist Hugo Bustíos, from running for mayor of Lima. (Photo: Diario Uno)

North America

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Isamu (Art) Shibayama, a rights advocate for Latin Americans of Japanese descent who were detained in prison camps in the United States during World War II, died July 31 at his home in San Jose, Calif. Born in Lima, Peru, in 1930, Shibayama was 13 when his family was detained and forcibly shipped to the United States. They were among some 2,000 Japanese-Peruvians who were rounded up and turned over to the US military for detention after the Pearl Harbor attack. Upon their arrival in New Orleans, the family was transported to the "internment camp" for Japanese-Americans at Crystal City, Texas. The family would remain in detention until 1946. Shibayama eventually won US citizenship, but was denied restitution for his wartime detention on the basis that he had not at the time been a US citizen or legal resident. He was still seeking justice from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the time of his death. (Photo via the New York Times)

The Andes

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The day after thousands of Peruvians filled the streets of Lima in a March Against Corruption, Duberli Rodriguez stepped down from his posts as head of the country's justice department, Poder Judicial, and president of the Supreme Court. Orlando Velasquez, president of the National Council of the Magistrature, also resigned. The justice minister, Salvador Heresi, had already been sacked by President Martín Vizcarra days earlier, amid a widening scandal concerning the perverting of the court system. The outrage was sparked when national media outlets aired a series of telephone recordings involving an extensive network of judges, businessmen and local authorities describing illegal deals. (Photo: Diario Uno)

The Amazon

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In a joint anti-drug operation code-named Armagedon, Peruvian military and National Police troops carried out a series of raids in the remote Putumayo river valley along the Colombian border this week, arresting some 40, destroying four cocaine laboratories, and seizing large quantities of cocaine sulfate and harvested cannabis. The majority of those detained were Colombian nationals, and authorities said they suspect the presence of "dissident" FARC units, who are trying to establish the zone as a staging ground to keep alive their insurgency. More than 350 troops have been deployed in the operation, with five helicopters and three planes as well as boats. The operation is being coordinated with Colombian security forces, who are carrying out similar missions on their side of the Río Putumayo. (Photo via El Comercio)

The Andes

Jamil Khader’s denuded land

Peru's top public prosecutor Luis Landa Burgos ordered that new charges be brought against ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori over the forcible sterilization of thousands of indigenous and peasant women during his time in power in the 1990s. Three of his former ministers are also to face charges, as well as his ex-health director. Landa said he has an archive of testimony from survivors including Inés Condori, an indigenous woman from Cuzco region who was the first to speak out about the forced sterilization she underwent in 1995. Fujimori, already convicted on other rights abuses and corruption charges, was released from prison following a presidential pardon in December. Landa is now evaluating the legality of the pardon in light of new criminal charges that have been brought. (Photo of sterilization survivors in community meeting from La República via CNDH)

The Andes

Ralph DiGia

Genaro Ledesma, a campesino leader and later congressmember who was one of the most respected figures on Peru's political left, died April 1 at the age of 86. He was first elected to Congress in 1963 while imprisoned in connection with peasant protests in his home province of Cerro de Pasco. He was again imprisoned and exiled under later military dictatorships, but returned to Peru with the restoration of democracy in 1979 to help draft the country's new constitution. Ledesma served in the Senate from 1980 to 1990, and continued to work for unity of Peru's democratic left in the polarized years of the Sendero Luminoso insurgency and Alberto Fujimori dictatorship. (Photo via Facebook)

The Andes

Marcos in Manhattan

Seemingly irregular oil contracts have emerged as a factor in the ongoing political scandal that last week brought down Peru's president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Following accusations from left-opposition congressmembers, state agency PeruPetro admitted that hours before leaving office, Kuczynski had issued a Supreme Decree initiating the process of approving five offshore oil concessions with a private company—but without the involvement of PeruPetro in vetting the contracts, as required by law. Calling the deals "lobista," Dammert is demanding that new President Martín Vizcarra declare the contracts void. (Photo: Gestión)

The Andes

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Potato farmers across Peru's sierras blocked roads with their tractors and trucks for weeks, demanding a subsidized distribution system for the staple crop in the face of plummeting prices. The National Commission of Potato Producers (Conapropa) struck a deal with the government, but wildcat protests continued in Huancavelica, Huánuco, Junín, Ayacucho and Arequipa regions. Finally, farmers advanced on Lima in a cross-country motorcade. This forced Conapropa leader Fernando Gutiérrez back to the table, meeting with Agriculture Minister José Arista to strike a better deal. Huancavelica regional governor Glodoaldo Álvarez denied government claims of over-production by farmers, and pointed to massive imports since the 2009 Free Trade Agreement with the US. Farmers at the roadblocks carried banners with slogans such as "¡Abajo el TLC!" (Down with the FTA!). (Photo: La República)

The Amazon

Marlon Santi

Legal proceedings continue in Bagua, a town on the edge of the rainforest in Peru's Amazonas region, against 25 Awajún and Wampis indigenous activists over deadly violence at a pumping station for the North Peru Oilduct in June 2009. Station 6 had at that time been under occupation by indigenous activists opposed to expansion of oil operations into their Amazonian homelands. Violence broke out at the occupied pumping station on June 5, 2009, when word reached the activists there of that morning's Bagua massacre, precipitated by National Police attacking an indigenous roadblock. Ten agents of DINOES, the National Police elite anti-riot force, were slain in the clash at Station 6. Prominent indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, already cleared of charges connected to the violence at Bagua, is now among those being tried for the bloodshed at Station 6. (Photo: Radio Reina de la Selva)

The Amazon

Iraq Strike

Peru's creation of Yaguas National Park—covering nearly 870,000 hectares of rainforest along the remote border with Colombia—is being hailed as a critical advance for protection of global biodiversity. The territory in the Putumayo river basin is roughly the size of Yellowstone National Park, but with more than 10 times the diversity of flora and fauna. Despite new areas brought under protection, forest is still being rapidly lost in Peru. A recent analysis of satellite images by th Andean Amazon Monitoring Project (MAAP) found 143,425 hectares of forest were lost across the Peruvian Amazon during 2017. (Image: Inhabit.com)