In a conciliatory move, Peru’s government promised Amazon Indians on Monday to ask Congress to revoke decrees that native groups say would make it easier to exploit their lands for oil, gas and other development.
Indigenous peoples’ anger over the decrees spurred two months of blockades of roads and rivers that turned violent on June 5 when police opened fire on activists at a roadblock.
At least 24 police officers and nine civilians were killed, according to the government. Indigenous leaders said at least 30 Indians were killed and accused police of hiding bodies.
Cabinet chief Yehude Simon signed a conciliatory pact after a four-hour meeting with leaders of 390 indigenous communities on Monday in the central jungle town of San Ramon, the state news agency Andina reported. It said the 12-point agreement specified the government would present Congress by tomorrow with a proposal to revoke the decrees.
Environment Minister Antonio Brack, a member of the government delegation, said it also offered to end a state of emergency and curfew in Amazonas state, where the June 5 melee occurred.
He said Indian leaders promised in return to end a blockade that has cut a key road into the central Amazon.
At a news conference, Simon said President Alan Garcia’s attempt to encourage what he called environmentally friendly development had been misinterpreted by the Indians.
He said dialogue was now important to build “confidence that has been lost,” vowing the government “will defend the Amazon from indiscriminate logging and will defend it against environmental contamination.”
Although Peru’s main Amazon Indian federation, AIDESEP, did not participate in Monday’s talks, it will join talks with the government that are to begin immediately in Lima, Andina reported.
The government had previously spurned Indian attempts to be consulted about the fate of development in the Amazon region.
“We don’t reject dialogue. On the contrary, dialogue and peace in the Amazon is what we want,” Ruben Binari, a leader of the Machiguenga people in the Urubamba region, told reporters.
Congress indefinitely suspended the controversial decrees last Wednesday, a day ahead of a nationwide wave of mostly peaceful anti-government protests.
The decrees, including a forestry law widely interpreted as promoting biofuel crops and logging, were among several promulgated by Garcia to comply with a free trade agreement with the US that took effect in January.
The leader of the Amazon protests, AIDESEP President Alberto Pizango, remained in Nicaragua’s embassy on Monday. He sought refuge there after sedition and rebellion charges were filed against him. Nicaragua granted him political asylum but he has not received safe passage out of Peru.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS