Victory for Peru’s Indigenous peoples
The Congress voted to repeal the two laws – which would have made it easier for tribal lands to be sold to industrial companies – by 66 votes to 29.
Alberto Pizango, president of Aidesep, the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, acclaimed the vote as ‘a new dawn… for all Peruvians who wish to develop in freedom, not in oppression’. But President Alan Garcia, who originally passed the laws by decree as part of a free trade agreement with the USA, said ‘hundreds of thousands of people were condemned to poverty, exclusion and marginalisation’ by the repeal.
Peru’s indigenous communities feared that the legislation would result in large mining companies attempting a land grab to reach rich mineral deposits in the Amazon basin.
Members of 65 tribes protested against the laws during August by blocking highways, surrounding energy installations and even taking police officers hostage, leading to the government declaring a state of emergency in the provinces of Amazonas, Loreto and Cusco.
November 2008
Alberto Pizango, president of Aidesep, the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, acclaimed the vote as ‘a new dawn… for all Peruvians who wish to develop in freedom, not in oppression’. But President Alan Garcia, who originally passed the laws by decree as part of a free trade agreement with the USA, said ‘hundreds of thousands of people were condemned to poverty, exclusion and marginalisation’ by the repeal.
Peru’s indigenous communities feared that the legislation would result in large mining companies attempting a land grab to reach rich mineral deposits in the Amazon basin.
Members of 65 tribes protested against the laws during August by blocking highways, surrounding energy installations and even taking police officers hostage, leading to the government declaring a state of emergency in the provinces of Amazonas, Loreto and Cusco.
November 2008
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