Chronology of the Current Amazon Issue

Abridged from “Chronicle of a Killing Foretold” by Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, Lima ——— November 2007: President García publishes in the daily “El Comercio” his articles on “the dog in the manger syndrome” and “the dog in the manger reloaded,” where the President states: “The primary resource is Amazonia. It has 63 million hectares [...]

Peru’s Amazon leaders retreat insurgency call, agree to pursue claims within the law

Amazon tribal leaders agreed Saturday afternoon to retract their call for insurgency, signing an agreement with the Public Ombudsman’s Office after intense talks and agreeing to continue their demands within the rule of law.  

OPINION: State of emergency against Indigenous Amazon tribes

Editorial column from Monday’s Diario La Primera ~ By Roger Rumrill* ~ Dr. Alan Garcia Perez’s government has decreed, as of Saturday, May 9, a state of emergency in almost the entire Amazon territory, out there where the indigenous organizations are protesting with strikes, marches and even blockades of rivers and highways against a package [...]

Amazon Update: Peru Government declares state of emergency in 9 eastern districts

The Executive declared a state of emergency for 60 days in the the Amazon districts of four departments in eastern Peru, including Loreto, Amazonas, Ucayali and Cusco. The decision ws triggered by continuing protests from indigenous communities throughout the Amazon region, most recently in the northeast at Petroperu’s Nº 5 pump station on the North [...]

Catholic Bishops in Peru’s Amazon call for protection of ethnic communities

A call for real and inclusive dialogue with indigenous communities and the repeal of several Amazon development laws was made this week by the bishops of eight Catholic vicariates in Peru’s Amazon region. In a public statement, the bishops urge President Alan Garcia and Congress to repeal two laws and seven decrees that they claim [...]

Strike in Amazon

By Antonio Zapata Note: This article was written 15 April 2009 for La República newspaper by historian and commentator Antonio Zapata. It has been translated for the Peruvian Times in order to provide some general background to the ongoing critical dispute in the Amazonian area of Peru. ————— While the Fujimori case has been the [...]

OPINION: The Innocence of the Guilty

By José Luis Mejía All politicians are guilty, or almost all of them. If they were judged by a court made up of good men (in the true sense of the word) –as the Spanish poet Antonio Machado would say—nine out of ten would land up, bones and crimes, in jail. Power corrupts and few [...]

Ex-President Fujimori sentenced to 25 years on charges of human rights violations

Peru‘s former President Alberto Fujimori has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, following a verdict of guilty on four counts of human rights violations. The sentence, announced at 12:10m, was read at the end of the opinion given by the three-judge panel headed by Chief Judge César San Martín. The sentence, and the verdict, are [...]

Ex-President Alberto Fujimori found guilty of sanctioning paramilitary death squad

Peru’s ex-President Alberto Fujimori was found guilty on all charges Tuesday for sanctioning a paramilitary death squad that gunned down 25 people in two notorious massacres during the first two years of his 10-year authoritarian rule. Chief Judge César San Martín announced the unanimous verdict by the three judge panel at 9:26 a.m., bringing to [...]

Ramon Castilla’s Dream

By Paul Goulder On March 6 Capt. Carlos Saavedra stepped down from his command of the oldest working single-screw iron ship in the world, the Yavari. We might say that she is, together with her sister ship the Yapura (today the Navy’s BAP Puno), not only the oldest but also the “highest” in the world [...]

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