Suspension of Peruvian Forestry Decree Fails to Quell Indigenous Backlash

Attempts to Diffuse Tensions

The Peruvian Congress has approved the suspension of the Forestry and Wildlife decree (DL 1090) that has fuelled the anger of Amazon tribes over the last two months. According to the local press, the decree will be temporarily deactivated for a 90-day period, easing the resumption of dialogue with the embattled native groups. Decree 1090 has been hotly criticised by the country's indigenous population for its undermining of collective and indigenous rights as well as the weakening of their authority over ancestral lands. The law is seen as opening up vast swathes of Amazon land to private investment for logging and extractive purposes. Another decree regulating farming activities on Amazon territory (DL 1064) was also suspended by the unicameral legislature yesterday. Several other pieces of legislation approved both in 2007 and 2008 have provoked the ire of the Amazon tribal communities. Nevertheless, it is the Forestry and Wildlife decree that has come to epitomise this anger, and it has remained the focal point of protests, which are aimed at seeing it revoked. Disappointment and discontent were thus widespread yesterday as indigenous leaders were hoping for the full abrogation of that particular law.

Protests Maintained

Several indigenous leaders have announced that they will keep up their protests, though Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas insisted they no longer had grounds to do so following the decrees' suspension. The umbrella Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) has not yet commented on the decision. Its president, Alberto Pizango, remains a wanted man in Peru on charges of sedition and rebellion, and has sought asylum in Nicaragua. Native groups are to hold a series of marches across the towns of the Amazon today, while in the capital, Lima, they will benefit from the backing of the umbrella General Confederation of Peru Workers (CGTP) union and other unions and human rights and development organisations. All will gather for a march ending in front of the presidential palace. While the issues of human rights, indigenous rights, and the environment dominate, many are also pushing for the decree to be dropped altogether on constitutional grounds. Decree 1090 was considered unconstitutional by the relevant parliamentary commission last month, though discussions failed to be brought up at the plenary level. The main issue was the lack of consultation with affected communities over a legal change affecting their status and habitat.

Outlook and Implications

Congress's placatory move may well fail to quell tensions. Last week's violence, along with decades of neglect, is sure to constitute barriers to some indigenous leaders' engagement with the government. As for the latter, it is trying to find a way of modifying the laws to please the communities without giving into the more awkward and embarrassing act of revocation, since most of these laws were adopted as essential legal requirements to the coming into force of a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the United States.

The government is facing a serious crisis, with a notable impact on its image abroad (see Peru: 10 June 2009: Minister Resigns over Indigenous Crisis, Tensions Continue in Peruvian Amazon). Nevertheless, the current situation is partly of its own making. Social unrest in Peru has generally been fragmented and region-focused, yet this package of decrees has had the effect of bringing together multiple heterogeneous indigenous groups on an unprecedented scale around a common set of issues. It has given the AIDESEP a newly acquired nationwide profile, visibility, and influence unparalleled to date. President Alan García's reference to the tribal peoples as "extremists" and other condescending terms is unlikely to disrupt anti-government unity. As for the implicit allegations of international meddling in the protests (largely interpreted as indirect references to Venezuela and Bolivia), in particular in last week's violence, they serve little purpose at this juncture. Rather they consolidate the view of the "ignorant" tribes giving in to external pressures—ignorant being a term adopted by García—which complicates both the appeasement of protestors and the state of deteriorating ties with Bolivia. While the country was never mentioned by the government, Luis Gonzales Posada, a legislator from the ruling American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), called directly for an investigation into the "Bolivian connection". A letter from Bolivia's President Evo Morales to the Fourth Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples, which was celebrated last month in the Peruvian city of Puna, has been singled out by the media as possible evidence of Bolivian interference. In his message, Morales claims that indigenous people would pass from "resistance to rebellion and from rebellion to revolution". Using the letter as a sign of Bolivian ill-intent in Peru is extremely tenuous at best. Revolutionary comments, tied to indigenous emancipation, are a traditional feature of speeches by Morales—himself a member of an indigenous community—and his comments fall well short of a direct call for the actual indigenous Peruvian Amazonians to rebel and engage in violence.