Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quirynen from LMN member group CATAPA were caught up in the brutal police response to recent Indigenous protests over laws opening the Peruvian Amazon region to mining, oil and timber development. Survival International has published their report, ‘Death at Devil’s Bend: an eyewitness account’, which provides a dramatic narrative of the day’s events, which ended with a large number of people, both police officers and indigenous protesters, dead. Read the report at http://www.survival-international.org/news/4687. See also http://www.catapa.be/en/news/369.
The President of Peru’s Amazon Indian organisation AIDESEP was forced into exile. Alberto Pizango sought refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Peru’s capital Lima after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Nicaragua granted him asylum. Pizango was charged with ‘sedition, conspiracy and rebellion’. See http://www.survival-international.org/news/4650?utm_source=E-news+(English)&utm_campaign=501c55f142-Enews_Special_Peru_Protests6_10_2009&utm_medium=email.
Peru’s President Alan Garcia has now acknowledged that he made ‘errors’ in his bid to open the area to extractives industries. Peru’s Congress has voted to revoke the two laws which led to the conflict. See http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-peru-amazon19-2009jun19,0,7934644.story.