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Since April, Peru’s indigenous communities have blocked roads, waterways and airports, staged strikes and shut down oil installations in an attempt to force the government to revoke investment laws passed last year and revise concessions granted to energy and mining companies.
President Garcia decreed most of the disputed laws under the special powers Congress gave him to bring Peru’s regulations into line with the requirements of its free trade pact with the United States. Critics maintain that the laws were not required under the FTA, but that the government seized the opportunity to change legislation in order to lure foreign investment into the Amazon basin. Some of the decrees have been found unconstitutional.
The Amazon has massive natural gas and oil reserves, which the government is keen to develop. The region is also rich in minerals, such as copper, Peru’s number one export product. Since the new laws entered into force, dozens of concessions have been auctioned to energy and mining companies. Fifteen more have been signed, most in the Amazon region.
Indigenous communities claim that about 70 percent of the Peruvian Amazon is now under some kind of foreign resource concession, either for oil and gas exploration or for mining. In addition to the repeal of the investment laws, they demand a greater say over the use of their natural resources, evoking ILO Convention 169, under which indigenous peoples have the right to be consulted prior to any project on their land.
The government has responded to the unrest by declaring a state of emergency in four regions, which allows it to impose curfews or send in troops to break up protests.
President Garcia says the decrees are non-negotiable. Instead, he has insisted that the “lands of the Amazon belong to all Peruvians and not just a small group that lives there.” The area makes up 60 percent of the country’s territory, but has just 11 percent of its population.
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