Peru lawmakers propose bill to strip Indigenous people of protections
Source: The Guardian
Peru lawmakers propose bill to strip Indigenous people of protections
Proposal to dismantle existing reserves for ‘uncontacted’ Indigenous groups quietly pushed amid ongoing political chaos
Dan Collyns in Peru
@yachay_dc
Fri 23 Dec 2022 10.00 GMT
Amid the political chaos following the ousting of Peru’s President Pedro Castillo, lawmakers in the country’s congress are quietly trying to pass a bill into law that would strip “uncontacted” Indigenous people of protection and dismantle existing reserves created for them.
The bill proposes to modify a 2006 law protecting Indigenous peoples in “isolation” and “initial contact” – those living with little or no contact with the outside world – in order to halt the creation of new reserves and eliminate existing ones, of which there are seven in Peru’s Amazon.
The proposal, put forward by Jorge Morante, a little-known lawmaker, flies in the face of abundant documentary evidence of the existence of up to 25 isolated groups living in the country’s Amazon rainforest, which is second in size only to Brazil’s.
“I’ve never seen such a nefarious bill in 30 years working for the protection of isolated Indigenous peoples,” said Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist working with Orpio, the Indigenous federation in Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/23/peru-indigenous-protections-bill
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