Assassinations in the Amazon: how will Peru respond?
Assassinations in the Amazon: how will Peru respond?
Indigenous leaders killed near Brazil border following logging and land title battle
Posted by
David Hill
Saturday 13 September 2014 08.05 EDT
“Martyrs”, “true guardians of the Amazon”, “defenders of the rainforest. . .” These are just some of the terms used to describe four Peruvian indigenous leaders who were assassinated earlier this month, but “Dead Friends of the Earth”, a term used by NGO Global Witness for people killed defending their land or the environment, might be another.
The four men – Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quincima Meléndez, Jorge Ríos Pérez and Francisco Pinedo, from the Ashéninka people – are widely believed to have been killed by loggers, although regional indigenous organisation Orau acknowledges “narco-traffickers” may have been responsible. Led by Chota Valera, the Ashéninkas had been fighting for years to gain legal recognition of their territory and had repeatedly denounced illegal logging and logging concessions on land claimed by their community, Alto Tamayo-Saweto.
Chota Valera himself had received numerous death threats, sometimes sought refuge across the border in Brazil, and requested protection from Peru’s authorities. He was killed only a few days after a visit from government officials documenting illegal logging in his territory.
Earlier this year, Saweto filed a lawsuit against the regional government over its land title claims. According to Chris Fagan, from the USA-based NGO Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC) which works with the community, Saweto had an agreement with the regional government’s titling agency to make it “the first indigenous community to gain title under Ucayali’s [the name of the region] new decentralized system.” However, final approval has been rejected by the government because the agency has refused to cancel the concessions, Fagan told the Guardian, “despite unequivocal evidence of blatantly illegal logging in the concessions and the government’s willingness to cancel other concessions elsewhere in Ucayali.”
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2014/sep/13/assassinations-amazon-peru-respond
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