[Peace-discuss] anti-NAFTA, anti-enclosure victory for indigenous Peruvians

[John W.]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>wrote:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43643
>
>
> PERU: Indigenous Groups Win Major Battle in Congress
> By Milagros Salazar
>
> LIMA,
> Aug 22 (IPS) - The Peruvian Congress voted Friday to repeal two decrees
> that opened up communally owned native lands to private investment and
> that triggered a wave of protests this month by indigenous people in
> Amazon jungle provinces.
>
> The vote was a rare instance of
> cooperation between opposition lawmakers and legislators from parties
> that up to now have been allied with the government, who voted to
> overturn the decrees on the argument that they undermined the rights of
> native communities.
>
> Sixty-six lawmakers voted to revoke the decrees and 29 members of the
> governing APRA party voted against the decision.
>
> The decrees were adopted by the executive branch in an
> unconstitutional manner and without respecting indigenous groups' right
> to be consulted prior to any project on their land, as established by
> International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, which has been
> ratified by Peru.
>
> A majority in Congress agreed that the government went beyond
> the special powers it was granted by parliament as part of the free
> trade agreement negotiated with the United States, when it vetoed the
> legislature's original vote against the two laws.
>
> Under the decrees, a mechanism created in the 1990s, which
> allowed indigenous communities to sell or lease collectively-owned land
> to third parties if approved by two-thirds of the members of a
> community assembly, was modified to permit sales with the votes of just
> 50 percent plus one of the assembly members.
>
> "The executive branch ran roughshod over Congress, native
> communities and international conventions," said Roger Nájar, the new
> chairman of the parliamentary committee on Andean and Amazon peoples
> and the environment.
>
> In Nájar's view, the government's "arrogant attitude" fuelled the
> indigenous protests held in different parts of the country's Amazon
> jungle region from Aug. 9-20, where they occupied energy industry
> installations and took police officers hostage.


Imagine citizens of the United States getting away with this.



> The government declared a 30-day state of emergency on Monday, Aug. 18 in
> several provinces to crack down on the protests.
>
> The indigenous groups did not call off their demonstrations
> until Wednesday, Aug. 20, after the president of Congress, Luis
> Velásquez Quesquen, promised that the legislature would debate the
> repeal of the two decrees.
>
> "The right way of doing things would have been to hold talks,
> decentralised sessions (with native organisations before the decrees
> were approved). *We definitely do not approve of the protests, but they
> were caused by the government,"* said Congresswoman Gabriela Pérez del
> Solar, of the National Unity (UN) party.


Imagine one of our legislators admitting to something like this.



> But the APRA legislators argued that the decrees had been
> approved in order to give indigenous communities in the jungle and
> highlands regions the same tools that campesinos (peasant farmers) in
> the coastal region have, that allow them to rent or sell their land.
>
> "This is special treatment for certain cultures. Are native
> people minors? What these decrees were aimed at is a revolutionary
> change to pull them out of poverty. *The law has to be the same for
> everyone; that's what the rule of law is all about,"* argued Congressman
> Mauricio Mulder, the secretary-general of the governing party.


Imagine this being the case in the United States of America.



> Using the same arguments, President Alan García said Wednesday
> that Congress was going to make "a huge mistake" if it overturned the
> decrees.
>
> And on Friday morning, before the result of the vote in parliament was
> announced, the president of the National Confederation of Private
> Business Institutions (CONFIEP), Jaime Cáceres, called on the
> government to impose its authority.
>
> The spokesman for the ruling party legislators, Aurelio
> Pastor, told the press that the government would veto Friday's
> parliamentary vote.
>
> "By doing that, the only thing the government is going to
> achieve is to generate ill-feeling in the country. It is just provoking
> the indigenous people; that's called state terrorism," Congressman
> Víctor Mayorga, who headed the working group that originally assessed
> the constitutionality of the decrees, told IPS.
>
> Mayorga explained that he recommended on Jun. 9 that the two
> decrees be declared unconstitutional, but that the rest of the
> legislators in his working group did not review his proposal for a
> joint statement that could have been sent to the constitution committee
> and then to the floor of the legislature, where they could have been
> repealed without the risk of a government veto.
>
> However, Mayorga explained to IPS that the legislature can overrule the
> government's veto.
>
> Legislator Gloria Ramos told IPS that "our country is
> multicultural. But the political programmes and policies are
> implemented as if it were homogeneous. We must promote a model of
> development that is based on who we really are. The cultural element
> must be taken into consideration as the basis of our development."
>
> "If the government vetoes the law, it will not be respecting
> democracy," said Ramos. "The president has to consider that the kind of
> investment it is promoting, which is so far removed from our reality
> and our diversity, does not necessarily generate development."
>
> In the Amazon jungle region, hundreds of indigenous people celebrated the
> parliamentary decision.
>
> "This is a demonstration that the people came together to make
> their voices heard. There are no losers or winners here; the Peruvian
> people as a whole have taken a huge step," Alberto Pizango, the
> president of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the
> Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), which led this month's protests, told
> the press.
>
> Pizango urged the government to take indigenous peoples'
> demands into account in its public policies because "we don't want to
> be a social burden; we want to solve our pressing problems."
>
> The vice president of AIDESEP, Robert Guimaraes, added that
> the next step should be the creation of a multi-sectoral committee to
> address the rest of the demands of the country's indigenous people, and
> the establishment of a team of experts to implement ILO Convention 169.
>
> In July, the Peruvian ombudsman's office had filed a legal challenge
> against the two decrees in the Constitutional Court.
>
> In a legal analysis, the non-governmental Amazonian Centre for
> Anthropology and Practical Application warned that the two decrees were
> unconstitutional and contravened Convention 169 and article 19 of the
> United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
>
> According to the report, the failure to previously consult
> indigenous communities prior to authorising or undertaking activities
> on native lands is one of the causes of social and environmental
> conflicts and unrest.
>
> The government must also furnish the National Institute for
> the Development of Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (INDEPA),
> created to represent these communities in the state, with real powers,
> says the report. (END/2008)
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