InterEthnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon – AIDESEP
4 Asháninka assassinated in the community of Saweto – Ucayali
President Ollanta Humala and political parties – How many more deaths will you wait for before dealing with the territorial debt owed to Amazonian indigenous peoples?
Solution needed NOW to 20 million hectares of territorial demands by 1,124 abandoned communities
We declare as martyrs of indigenous territoriality, the four Asháninka leaders from the community of Saweto: Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quincima Meléndez, Jorge Ríos Pérez and Francisco Pinedo of Alto Tamaya, Ucayali. They were murdered by logger colonists, in a death foretold by a history of impunity and abandonment by the State, which refused to offer a land title to their community (Saweto) in favor of illegal logging. The cause of the killings was colonization. Behind the crime at Saweto is colonization, trafficking in land, illegal logging, and the corruption and laziness of state officials. And behind that is racism, the idea of “living borders”, the myth of the “empty Amazon”, and the con artists in favor of individual land parcels.
Saweto is part of the Historic Territorial Debt owed by the Peruvian State, stalled and accumulated over the decades: 20 million hectares pending from 1,124 communities, that demand recognition (294), land titling (613) and expansion (262), in addition to the proposals for collective land titling as indigenous peoples (10), for territorial reserves for “autonomous peoples” (indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation) (5) and communal reserves (6).
Peru, learn the lessons of the “Amazonazo” in 2008 / 2009. No more violence in response to the indefatigable struggle for our lands and the unified heart, life, and future of our indigenous peoples. This is what Alberto Pizango and 52 Amazonian leaders fought for, and for which today they run the risk of serving life sentences in jail. Meanwhile, the criminals behind the “Devils’ Curve” and the recent killings in Saweto will live on in impunity. We demand absolution for the defenders of the Amazon.
This disaster will be exacerbated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI). With the PTRT3 project, investing $50 million to increase the number of colonists to the Amazon by 700,000. This is a repetition of the failure of PTRT1 and PTRT2, which promoted individual parcelization and the destruction of indigenous communities, trafficking in lands, and corruption from COFOPRI.
Las #30230 weakens indigenous territorial security and the institutions that protect the environment in the Amazon. It established ‘special’ procedures for titling of rural lands, carried out by the rejected COFOPRI, within areas of direct or indirect influence of private investment projects like mining and oil / gas. This will be to the advantage of companies that will go from being concession-holders to land-owners, as has happened in the case of oil palm projects.
Colonization benefits the oil palm disaster. Large corporations pay 900 soles (~$315) to cut down one hectare of jungle. This means the death of thousands of trees and animals, and then more death with monoculture plantations. This is how they destroyed 85% of Malaysia, the mofiosos of which now invade Peru and join up with Grupo Romero, camouflaging themselves behind supposed “small-holder oil palm colonists”.
This disaster is approved by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), MINAGRI, and the IDB, joined by certain regional governments in Peru. The MEF’s agenda is more plantations, MINAGRI offers concessions for oil palm, and the IDB finances more colonists. The goal is destroy 200,000 hectares with oil palm, doubling the national annual deforestation. This disaster of oil palm – colonists – illegal logging also deepens the climate crisis, with local manifestations to global causes. Is the world going to believe Peru during the COP20 given contradictory talk of ‘sustainable development’ with so many promises and so little real outcomes?
Our proposals, solutions, actions:
1. Immediate titling of Saweto as the only valid condolence the State can offer to this crime. No more rhetoric and hipocracy, leaving the community abandoned. Bring into reality the most recent promises of the ViceMinister for Inter-Culturality (MINCU) made in Pucallpa about the recognition and titling of Amazonian indigenous communities.
2. Exemplary sanction against the assassins of Alto Tamaya (Saweto), so that the mafias of Ucayali don’t continue to benefit from impunity. State presence in the Alto Tamaya for the protection of rights, not to corrupt them.
3. Use the $50 million from PTRT3 for titling of 1,124 Amazonian communities, not just 16% of them (180). No to the wasting of those funds in consultancies and studies of the same things. Less red tape to title communities, and don’t just favor the colonists and businesses. Annul the expensive black holes of unnecessary studies of lands.
4. No to the disaster of 739,093 more colonists in the Amazon with the approval of PTRT3, IDB, MINAGRI who would get 60% (3.4 million hectares) of the total to be titled. No more of the lie of calling the private parcelization of Amazonian territories as “titling of communities.” PTRT3 doesn’t have safeguards to guarantee the possession of communities. We need to bring a complaint to the IDB’s ICIM given the incoherencies of PTRT3, in order to try to correct it or, if not, better to cancel it if it continues to promote colonization.
5. Suspend request for thousands of hectares for oil palm concessions in the Amazon, and disarticulate Mafioso practices.
6. Create regulations to the Forestry Law that respect the territorial rights of indigenous communities, promote community-based forestry management, stop illegal logging, and stop oil palm.
7. Coherence for Peru at the COP20: Less oil palm, mafias, logging, and “environmental packages”. More land titling for indigenous peoples and communities.
8. COP20: That climate funds should make it to the forests and indigenous peoples, not just stay in the bureaucracies. Funds for more land titling, management of resources, and community-level governance.
9. Initiate legal actions for constitutional guarantee against the intended application of Law #30230 and the titling of rural lands in favor of public and private investment projects that would affect the territories of Amazonian indigenous peoples, through COFOPRI.
10. Recognize collective territorial titles by indigenous people for the Achuar, Kandozi, Kampupiyapi, Chapra, Quichua, Kukama, Wampis, Awajun, Shiwilo, Ese Eja, Kichwa, Yaminahua, Arawak, and other indigenous peoples, applying ILO Convention 169 and stopping the violation thereof by dividing up communities in family properties.
Edwin Chota, Leoncio Quincima, Jorge Ríos and Francisco Pinedo are in the memory and the history of the Amazonian indigenous struggle.
“Where there are indigenous peoples with their rights, there will always be living forests for everyone”
AIDESEP Steering Council
ARPI-SC: Regional Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Central Jungle
COMARU: Machiguenga Council of the Urubamba River
CODEPISAM: Development Coordinator for the Indigenous Peoples of San Martin
COPRI-SL: Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo
CORPIAA: Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of Atalaya
FENEMAD: Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River
ORAU: Regional Organization of AIDESEP in Ucayali
ORPIAN: Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Amazon
OPRIO: Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the West
76 Indigenous Federations * 1500 Communities
34 years fighting for Indigenous Peoples’ territory and self-determination
