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FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Peru's indigenous people win one round over developers

Logging and other activities ruin tribal lands and set off protests that lead to the revocation of laws to further open the Amazon to outsiders. 'The Indians beat them by a knockout,' one analyst says

By Chris Kraul
5:36 PM PDT, June 24, 2009

Reporting from Yurimaguas, Peru -- Peruvian tribal leader Luis Pizango says private investment in his part of the Amazon has brought only misery to him and his people.

Deforestation by loggers ruined tribal hunting grounds. An oil spill in the nearby Corrientes River diminished fishing. A 10,000-acre African palm plantation to produce biofuels displaced dozens of tribal families. And a government plan to build a port facility on the Huallaga River to ease trade with Brazil stands to limit his people's access to the waterway.

The Shawi indigenous people in northeastern Peru have many reasons for bitterness, Pizango, who is apu, or chief, of the group, said recently while visiting a roadblock set up a few miles west of Yurimaguas to protest government policies.

"It's been a long trajectory of abuse," Pizango said. "We got tired of it."

He and others had blocked the main road leading to Peru's interior with tree stumps and rocks and set up makeshift tents with plastic sheeting along the highway shoulders. The surrounding terrain of Loreto province was a rolling green moonscape that long ago had been clear cut by loggers.

Then, in a development celebrated as a victory for indigenous groups, Peru's Congress last week voted to revoke two laws enacted last year to further open the Amazon to mining, oil and timber development. The measures had enraged indigenous groups and led to a bloody confrontation June 5 in Bagua that officials said left 10 civilians and 23 police officers dead, with one officer missing and presumed dead.
...
Shortly after Thursday's vote, Peru's largest indigenous umbrella group, known by its Spanish initials AIDESEP, called for all roadblocks to end. Many of the roadblocks, including Pizango's, were lifted by Friday afternoon, but unrest continued in parts of the country.

Although the government conceded points to the tribes, some of the groups said it will take more than the revocation of two laws to mollify them. Pizango said last week that his group wants a half dozen other decrees revoked.

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