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."

the US military prescence in the VRAE coca growing region of Peru

TO BE NOTED: From Inca Kola News:

"There is a secret US military base in Peru.....

The secret document as published by La Primera today

.....which only comes as a surprise to those silly enough to believe what the liars that inhabit the Twobreakfasts government say. Peru newspaper La Primera has today got its hands on a secret memo (not secret any more though) that outlines the US military prescence in the VRAE coca growing region of Peru. Even this humble corner of cyberspace knows as much, though. In this post back in February I wrote...

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In fact, there might not be a formal US air base in Peru the same as the one in Ecuador, but anyone who hangs in the right places in lowland Peru more than a week knows the VRAE airbase, supposedly Peru soldiers only, is constantly packed full of US soldiers, planes, copters and air crew.

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...which, funnily enough, is the exact scenario laid out by La Primera in its report today. Here's a section translated by yours truly:

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• "....The government categorically denied the possibility of the installation of a US military base in our country. However, La Primera has gained access to an official document stating the Ministry of Defence coordinated with the ex-commander general of the armed forces, Edwin Donayre, the request of the United States of America to construct an Operations and Intelligence Command Centre at the Pichari military base in the Valle de los Rios Apurimac y Ene (VRAE).

• Via notice 058 VPD/A/SEC dated March 10th 2008, the Vice-minister of Defence Policy, Nuria Esparch Fernández, told Donayre that the administration of the sector coordinated with the Southern Command, via the the Constulting and Military Assistance Group of the United States, the construction plans for "A centre of medical assistance and a command centre for operations and intelligence in the territory where the armed forces are stationed in Pichari."."

Oh how they insulted Evo Morales when he had the balls to accuse Peru of running a secret US base. Let's see what they throw at each other this time, as apologies from Twobreakfasts are as unlikely as a hunger strike."

It really is everything you've ever wanted to know about the Amazon rainforest

TO BE NOTED: From Inca Kola News:

"A most impressive map of the Amazon rainforest

A couple of weeks ago IKN ran this post with a chart that shows just how much (read 'how little') of the Amazon Rain forest is protected by its host countries. Well now the people behind the study RAISG, have released their truly fabulous interactive zoom-in detailed map of the whole region, it's protected areas, its indigenous territories etc etc

Click to enlarge (it gets very big)

The above map is a screenshot from the site, but you should really go to the link right here and have a play for yourself. It really is everything you've ever wanted to know about the Amazon rainforest but were too afraid to ask and you can zoom in and out, change parameters, look in close detail and all the rest. A highly recommended website and superb source material.

His conviction is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable, as Human Rights Watch pointed out.

TO BE NOTED: From the Guardian:

"The lesson from Lima

The conviction of Alberto Fujimori for human rights abuses is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable

Comments (12)

• 
• • Michael Reid
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 April 2009 21.30 BST
  • Article history

When Alberto Fujimori abandoned five years of voluntary exile in Japan and flew to Chile in 2005, he was planning a political comeback. But his gamble backfired spectacularly when he was extradited to Peru. On Tuesday, after a 16-month televised trial, a Lima court found that he had known about and authorised the activities of an army death-squad which killed 25 civilians in two separate incidents in the early 1990s. The court sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment. Already serving six years for abuse of power, he faces three further trials for corruption.

This verdict is rightly being hailed as a landmark victory for the rule of law in Peru and Latin America. Fujimori is the first elected president in the region to be tried for human-rights abuses in his own country. By the account of many observers the trial, in a civilian court, was fair. Furthermore, Fujimori is still fairly popular. (His daughter, already a congresswoman, is a contender in the next presidential election in 2011.)

During his two terms as Peru's president, from 1990 to 2000, many hailed Fujimori as a saviour. As he told the court, when he took office he was "governing in hell". He ended hyperinflation, and opened up a fossilised state-dominated economy, launching two decades of rapid economic growth that has lifted millions of Peruvians out of poverty. He crushed the vicious insurgency of the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla group which, together with the army's dirty war against them, cost 70,000 lives.

But there was always a dark, cynical side to Fujimori, who governed as an autocrat. He gave the army free rein, using it to shut down Peru's Congress and its courts in 1992. He rigged an election to win an unconstitutional third term, only for his regime to implode shortly afterwards. That laid bare the machinations of Vladimiro Montesinos, his intelligence chief, who systematically bribed politicians, judges and media owners, while extorting kickbacks from businessmen and drug barons. Investigators found that more than $1 billion was stolen from public funds during Fujimori's rule.

His conviction is part of a worldwide trend to hold heads of state accountable, as Human Rights Watch pointed out. In Latin America, dictators may have largely departed, but in some places they have been replaced by elected autocrats who, like Fujimori, neuter their country's legislature and courts. The lesson from Lima is that the law may eventually catch up with them. Hugo Chávez, watch out."