News Update on South American Indians

News is pouring out of Peru, right now, regarding what is being called 'Amazon's Tiananmen'. The pictures of bloodied up Indians and police in riot gear beating up on screaming defenseless men and images of burned and dead bodies are horrific.


The recent clash between indigenous peoples and Peruvian national police sends a powerful message from the Amazon jungle straight to Washington: The enormous social, political, and environmental costs of the free-trade model are no longer acceptable.
Using a combined offensive of helicopter and ground forces, the police attacked a peaceful demonstration of 2,000 Wampi and Aguaruna indigenous people near the town of Bagua. The protesters belong to the interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle, an organization of about 300,000 members and 1,350 communities in the region. They blocked roads and occupied oil facilities to protest the executive decrees of President Alan García to implement the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA). The decrees open up the Amazon to foreign investment, particularly gas and oil extraction

Read more:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6200



First, the police fire tear gas, then rubber bullets. As protesters flee, they move on to live rounds. One man, wearing only a pair of shorts, stops to raise his hands in surrender. He is knocked to the ground and given an extended beating by eight policemen in black body-armour and helmets.
Demonstrators getting worked-over by the rifle butts and truncheons of Peru's security forces turn out to be the lucky ones, though. Dozens more were shot as they fled. You can see their bullet-ridden bodies, charred by a fire that swept through the scene of the incident, which has since been dubbed "the Amazon's Tiananmen".

Read more:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/images-reveal-full-horror-of-amazons-tiananmen-1708990.html?action=Popup&ino=13


Here the Peruvian government admits "mistakes were made". What a joke.

Peru's President Alan García addressed to the nation calling for reconciliation among Peruvians, after the violent events in Bagua that left 24 police officers and 10 natives dead. Garcia asked the Congress to approve the repeal of legislative decrees 1090 and 1064, the one that the natives are rejecting.

Read more:

http://www.livinginperu.com/news-9380-politics-perus-president-addressed-to-the-nation-and-admitted-mistakes