clash between more than 600 police officers and 2,000 protesters blocking a central highway escalated into riots

TO BE NOTED: From the FT:

"Peru to suspend land laws after violence

By Naomi Mapstone in Lima

Published: June 11 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 11 2009 03:00

Peru's Congress is moving to suspend the passage of laws at the heart of a lands right dispute with Amazonian indigenous tribes that sparked the worst violence the country has seen since the Maoist Shining Path insurgency.

The official death toll of 30 protesters and 24 police officers is contested by indigenous leaders, who accuse the armed forces of hiding bodies. The government denies the charge.

Mercedes Aroaz, trade and tourism minister, said a 90-day suspension of decree 1090, which would give the government the power to sell deforested land to private entities, would im-prove the chances of negotiating a solution. "If a suspension is temporary and gives the opportunity for dialogue and establishing consultation mechanisms, then we agree," she said.

But the suspension falls well short of the protesters' demands to repeal the legislation. They say decrees, being passed in part to comply with a trade agreement with the US, weaken their rights to land they have inhabited for hundreds of years. They fear decree 1090 would create a loophole whereby illegal deforestation would pave the way for the sale of land to oil, gas or mining interests, and decree 1064 would end the need for companies to consult indigenous communities before starting work.

An army curfew in the northern Amazonian town of Bagua has restored order, after the clash between more than 600 police officers and 2,000 protesters blocking a central highway escalated into riots, looting and the kidnapping of 38 police, nine of whom died.

Tensions remain high, however, with a national strike today and calls by indigenous leaders for the resignation of Yehude Simon, prime minister, and Mercedes Cabanillas, interior minister. Carmen Vildoso, minister for women and social development, resigned her cabinet post in protest at the government's handling of the violence.

President Alan Garcia called the protesters "ignorant", suggesting they were being manipulated by leftist forces outside Peru, interpreted to mean Hugo Chávez, of Venezuela, or Evo Morales, of Bolivia. After Alberto Pizango, an indigenous leader whom the government charged with sedition, was granted asylum in Lima's Nicaraguan embassy, Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's leftist president, was added to the list.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009"

at least 9 Indians had been killed and 155 wounded, and that a total of 22 police officers had been killed

TO BE NOTED: From the NY Times:

"9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mariana Bazo/Reuters

Relatives of a police officer killed in clashes between the military and protesters attended a mourning service in Lima, Peru.

LIMA, Peru — Nine police officers were killed Saturday as security forces regained control of a petroleum facility from indigenous protesters in a remote jungle region, raising the death toll related to protests by indigenous activists since Friday above 30, Peruvian government officials here said.

Prime Minister Yehude Simon said the officers were killed in the events surrounding a push to retake a pumping station belonging to Petroperú, the national oil company, in the northern Bagua Province, where indigenous protesters had kidnapped 38 police officers. Twenty-two of the abducted officers were freed, but seven were still missing, officials said.

The killings came amid reports by indigenous groups that security forces killed as many as 25 protesters Friday in clashes at a different location in Bagua, where Indians had blocked a highway. Mr. Simon confirmed that at least 9 Indians had been killed and 155 wounded, and that a total of 22 police officers had been killed, intensifying the most acute crisis faced by President Alan García since he took office in 2006.

The bloodshed comes after two months of slow-burning protests, which spread from rain forests in Peru’s north to the country’s south, and have focused on interrupting petroleum production and transportation. In an increasingly well-coordinated movement, the lowland Indians are demanding that Mr. García withdraw decrees that ease the way for companies to carry out major energy and logging projects in the Peruvian Amazon.

After the operation at the Petroperú facility, officials said they were planning to re-establish the supply of oil to remote provinces that had been hit with fuel shortages and blackouts. Still, it was unclear how successful they would be when protesters were still blocking routes on important highways and rivers.

Officials also said Saturday that they were seeking to enforce an arrest warrant on charges of sedition for Alberto Pizango, a Shawi Indian and the leader of Aidesep, an umbrella organization of indigenous groups that had organized many of the protests. But Mr. Pizango apparently went into hiding and was replaced by another leader, Champion Nonimgo.

“Our protests will go on until our demands are met,” Mr. Nonimgo said.

A maneuver here in Congress sparked the clashes between protesters and the police, after lawmakers blocked an effort Thursday to allow debate on one of Mr. García’s most polemical decrees, which would open as much as 60 percent of Peru’s jungles to oil exploration and other extractive investments.

Ollanta Humala, a nationalist political leader and a former lieutenant colonel in Peru’s army who was defeated by Mr. García in the most recent presidential elections, has sided with the protesters, lambasting the use of use of force against the Indians and raising his profile ahead of the next elections in 2011.

Meanwhile, the climbing body count in the rain forest, along with unconfirmed reports that the number of Indians killed could be higher, threatens to deplete the legitimacy of Mr. García’s government. Mr. García, 60, is still hounded by claims of human rights violations from his first term as president in the 1980s, when soldiers suppressed a prison rebellion in 1986, killing more than 100 inmates suspected of being Maoist guerrillas."

Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

TO BE NOTED: From Bloggings by boz:

"Peru protests boil over 2

Events are moving quickly in Bagua, Peru after yesterday's clashes. There are a lot of allegations and counter-allegations and a lot of unconfirmed information out there. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

Indigenous protesters took 38 police officers hostage. The news breaking right now says the military made a rescue attempt. The Peruvian military say they rescued 22 police, nine were killed by the protesters and seven remain missing.

Among other news (which I've also covered on Twitter):

• Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Alberto Pizango.
• The Peruvian Congress will hold a hearing on Monday.
• Members of the Peruvian government and pro-govt media claim the protesters are backed by Bolivia and Venezuela. Indigenous groups deny the allegations.
• Indigenous groups claim the government is lying about the number of protesters dead and are burning the bodies to "disappear" them (via IKN).
• The government has declared a day of national mourning tomorrow for the police officers who died. Flags at all Peruvian government buildings will be a half staff.

Both sides are using very harsh rhetoric which is serving to escalate the hostilities.

Posted by boz "

"These people aren't first-class citizens who can say -- 400,000 natives to 28 million Peruvians -- 'You don't have the right to be here.' No way.

TO BE NOTED: From CNN:

"30 die as indigenous protesters, police clash in Peru

LIMA, Peru (CNN) -- The government of Peru on Friday declared a state of emergency in a remote northern area after a clash between police and indigenous people protesting what they say is the exploitation of their native lands left a number of people dead.

Alberto Pizango, a leader of the protesters, says his followers did not kill police officers.

Police and indigenous protesters said separately that at least eight police and 22 protesters died.

The clash took place at dawn outside the northern province of Bagua in the Department of Amazonas as police attempted to break up a roadblock on the 59th day of protests.

Foreign Minister Jose A. Garcia Belaunde told CNN en Español that the state of emergency was ordered to give the government the opportunity to re-establish order and reopen talks with the protesters.

Under the state of emergency, the army can be called on to maintain order. "Look, the use of force is legitimate," he said. "Today, what we have received in response were gunshots -- directed at police helicopters, killing eight or nine police."

But Alberto Pizango, the principal leader of the indigenous group, said his followers could not have been responsible for killing any police, because they were armed only with stones and arrows.

He said the demonstrators had been pursuing a peaceful protest.

Authorities have not confirmed the number of civilian deaths.

The director general of the police, Jose Sanchez Farfan, said government buildings in Bagua had been looted and set aflame.

Though a congressional commission has recommended the repeal of the laws rejected by the native communities, President Alan Garcia supports those that allow using the lands, maintaining that the richness of the Amazon belongs to all Peruvians and that a significant percentage of natural areas are already protected.

"These people don't have crowns," he said about the protesters. "These people aren't first-class citizens who can say -- 400,000 natives to 28 million Peruvians -- 'You don't have the right to be here.' No way. That is a huge error."

Garcia called Pizango a criminal. Several days ago, Garcia announced an arrest warrant had been issued for Pizango, who is accused of inciting his followers to violence."