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By Mershona Parshall
This past spring, I was in the Peruvian Amazon learning from an
indigenous curandero about the amazing pharmacopoeia of the jungle.
A curandero, or healer, channels the powers of nature to help heal
the sick. Sometimes this healing involves using herbs and traditional
folk medicine, but it can also involve communication with the spirit
realm.
My idyllic jungle experience was forever altered on June
5, 2009,
when I learned that militia, sent by the Peruvian Government, had
fired upon, killed, and wounded peaceful indigenous protesters
in Bagua, a town in northern Peru. I learned that, for many months,
Amazonian Indians had been protesting against President
Alan Garcia’s
policy to open up over 70% of the Peruvian Amazon to international
oil, gas, mining, logging, and agribusiness interests for major
exploitation. Garcia used special powers to push through legislative
decrees after signing the Free Trade Agreement with the United
States during the Bush administration. These decrees were to allow
virtually unlimited access to much of Peru’s Amazon for major
resource exploitation regardless of environmental consequences
or human rights violations against Amazonian Indians.
The June 5th massacre in Bagua attracted international outrage,
and Garcia was forced to repeal two of the most egregious decrees.
The UN Special Rapporteur and other human rights organizations
condemned the Peruvian Government’s handling of the situation.
Regardless of international pressure, the Peruvian Government has
pressed criminal charges against leaders of the indigenous movement
despite its own human rights offenses, and has ignored the recommendations
of the United Nations.
Garcia touts extracting resources from the
rain forest as the solution
to reducing the substantial poverty in Peru. He complains that
the indigenous people are “ignorant savages” who
are holding back progress. Yet, he ignores the fact that oil
and gas extraction has left other parts of the Peruvian rain
forest so polluted the indigenous people can no longer eat the
fish or drink the water in their rivers. Since June 5th, Garcia
has attempted to undermine the cohesive objections of the Amazonian
indigenous tribes and he has not consulted with them, as promised,
about impacts on their ancestral territories by international
extraction corporations.
The Shipibo-Konibo tribe is one of the largest indigenous tribes
in the Peruvian Amazon. The Shipibo-Konibo have maintained a strong
tribal identity despite hundreds of years of exploitation. They
are known for their exquisite art, their traditional knowledge
of Amazonian plants, and powerful curanderos. Their territory runs
along the Rio Ucayali, a major tributary of the Amazon River. In
response to the present threats to indigenous territories, the
Shipibo-Konibo have decided to organize themselves politically
to protect their territory, culture, conserve the rainforest, and
promote sustainable economic development. Leaders met in June 2009
after the massacre and will meet again on October 16-18, 2009 for
the 2nd Congress of the Shipibo-Konibo in Pucallpa, Peru. At that
time, Shipibo-Konibo leaders will formalize their organization
and make plans to address the environmental threats and human rights
violations being supported by the present Peruvian administration.
Peru has some of the most biologically diverse rain
forests in
the world. Once the rain forest is bulldozed, logged, or
burned, it is gone forever. As you read this article, the Peruvian Government
is forging ahead with its agenda by auctioning off yet more parcels
of the jungle for resource exploitation.
I will be attending the 2nd Congress of the Shipibo-Konibo. Part
2 of this article (to be run in the January e-newsletter) will
focus on how the Shipibo-Konibo tribe plan to proceed in their
efforts to save their sizable territory and how we can help them.
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