When: Friday, 22 May 2009 at 10:00am EST
Where: Outside Peruvian Mission to the UN – 820 2nd Ave. (between 43rd and 44th Streets)
What: Indigenous leaders from around the world who are in New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will protest outside of the Peruvian Mission urging the Peruvian Government to respect indigenous peoples’ rights.
Who: Members of the Latin American Indigenous Caucus at the UN and COICA (The Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin) are joined by indigenous leaders from around the world and civil society allies including Land is Life, Amazon Watch, and the International Forum on Globalization.
Background: Friday’s demonstration is being held in solidarity with protests by more than 30,000 indigenous people in Peru who have blockaded roads and rivers throughout the country’s Amazon region for the past 43 days, demanding the revocation of new legislative decrees related to the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The decrees, aimed at facilitating entry of oil, mining, logging and agricultural companies, attempt to undermine indigenous peoples’ rights to their forest homelands in the Amazon, in some cases eliminating their right to prior consultation and consent.
Last Saturday, the Peruvian government authorized the intervention of the armed forces to crack down on peaceful protests that have paralyzed transport in the Amazon region. On Monday, the Peruvian government presented criminal charges, including treason and sedition against Alberto Pizango, the President of Peru’s national indigenous organization. Peruvian and international human rights organizations are widely criticizing the government’s attacks on indigenous peoples’ rights and demanding the government lift the state of emergency banning public protests.
The state oil company Petroperu announced this week that protests have led to the company shutting down the country’s main oil pipeline. Also oil companies Pluspetrol, Petrobras and Perenco are being affected. On Tuesday, the Peruvian Congress’s constitutional commission voted in favor of revoking decree 1090 (the new forestry law), one of the many contested decrees. The matter is now before the full Congress.
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For more information:
http://www.future.amazonwatch.org/peru-protests.php http://www.aidesep.org.pe
