About two weeks ago John Vidal of the Guardian newspaper wrote that conflicts will increase as government backed companies in the scramble for resources push into territories contested by indigenous people. About a week before his article, something extraordinary had happened.
Peru sent in heavily armed police to clear away some 2000 Aguarana and Wampi Indians protesting against the government’s right wing president, Alain Garcia, who sold 70%of their communal rain forests to oil and gas corporations.
These include the Anglo-French Perenco, Argentina’s PlusPetrol, Canada’s Petrolifera, Spain’s Repsol, Brazil’s Petrobras and many others.
Dozens were killed according to Amnesty International. But something else happened. Their protests, their sacrifice to save the rain forests, have for the moment, repealed President Garcia’s sale who is under pressure from the US to open up these forests as part of a destructive Free Trade deal.
The Peruvian Congress has since repealed the laws that would have allowed the corporations to drill by a margin of 82 to 12.
A leader among the Indians, Davi Yanomami said:
The earth has no price. It cannot be bought, or sold or exchanged. It is very important that white people, black people and indigenous peoples fight together to save the life of the forest and the earth. If we don’t fight together, what will our future be?
