ISDS Case Map
indigenous peoples
Since April 9, indigenous communities have shut down oil fields and gas pipelines, and blocked roads, rivers, airports and other installations. These actions are in protest at government decrees that open access to indigenous people's lands to facilitate oil, mining, logging and agricultural companies. Garcia decreed the laws under special powers awarded to him by Congress to bring Peruvian law into line with a free trade agreement (FTA) signed with the United States in December 2007.
After more than six weeks of protests by Peru's Amazonian indigenous groups that have included blockades of major roads and waterways and the shutting down an oil pipeline pumping station, the Peruvian government has begun to crack down.
Indigenous leaders from around the world are joined by supporters in a demonstration today outside the Peru's Mission to the United Nations, urging the Alan Garcia Government to respect indigenous peoples' rights and repeal a series of new laws passed under the pretext of implementing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States.
As the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency in the face of one month long indigenous protests, 42 indigenous leaders have entered the Peruvian Congress to announce a hunger strike until the issue of a repeal of decrees affecting the territorial rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon is debated by the full legislature. The decrees, which were passed to facilitate the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, facilitate the transfer of Amazon land and resource rights to oil, mining, logging and agricultural companies to the detriment of indigenous and campesino inhabitants. They also set the stage for the privatization of water resources.
United States foreign trade policies should insist on seeking more ethical economic practices which do not rely on the exploitation of lives and environmental resources, but which thrive off of sustainable relationships of production. Additionally, the United States should recognize the role it has historically played in protracting violence in Colombia, and the influence it has on Colombian forms of governance and economic policy
Colombian indigenous took their protest to Colombia's capital Bogotá this weekend. Their struggle is about controlling the land in which they have lived and taken care of for hundreds of years.
The Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) ratified rejection of a free trade agreement that governments of Colombia and Peru want to sign with the European Union. This reiteration is contained in a letter CAOI representative Miguel Palacin addressed to Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Belaunde, referring to the latter's threats to expel Bolivian social leaders allegedly in Peru to take part in protests against the agreement.
The Andean Community is in crisis as a result of the attitude of the European Union and the governments of Colombia and Peru, who in a meeting of foreign ministers held in Europe proposed to negotiate the FTA bilaterally, breaking with the Guayaquil Agreement, which ratified block by block negotiation. This attitude undermines Andean integration.
Colombian U'wa indigenous leaders visit US, urging investors and US Congress to respect human rights
The U'wa called attention to indigenous mobilizations in Colombia where some 15,000 are marching to Bogota -- to protest their government's backsliding on indigenous land rights in attempt to make way for the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
"During your historic campaign, you publicly noted some of what Colombians currently face: you acknowledged the murders of trade unionists by the regime and stated your reservations about a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which our people have decided against through a democratic referendum. We thank you for this, and now want you to know about the specific situation facing Colombia's indigenous peoples."
