The title of today's article is the title of this book that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gave to President Obama in April, at the Organization of American States (OAS). I hope Pres. Obama took time to read at least some of it.
http://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-Centuries/dp/0853459916/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244500842&sr=8-1
As soon as word got out about this interesting meeting, the first time Mr. Chavez and an American president were cordial together, and the book exchange, this book shot up to 2nd on Amazon.com's order list. Naturally, we here at A.P.R. had to get a copy, to see what the fuss was about.
It was truly eye-opening. The author, Eduardo Galeano, was a Uruguayan journalist when he wrote it in 1973, and it documents the centuries of exploitation of South America, first by the European imperial powers, and then the U.S. and multi-national corporations. It was last updated in 1997, before the rise to power of the many more left-leaning/progressive politicians in some of the Latin American countries. We learned many interesting things from this book. One little-known fact, the country of Paraguay in the 1850s-1860s actually developed, for it's time, a fairly progressive political structure, without the strong European-based oligarchy of all the other South American countries. Most workers in the cities were payed well, and farmers and ranchers received fair prices for their commodities. A coalition of countries, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, upset about this, afraid that this kind of government could serve as an example to the peasantry in their countries, invaded Paraguay in 1865, and thoroughly destroyed it. Only 250,000 of the two million people in that country survived! Brazil at this time was led by brutal oligarchs and still had slavery in place, which was not abolished until 1888! The last major country in the World to do so.
The common thread through the book, Open Veins..., is that first European countries, and then the U.S. and multi-national corporations, conspire with the European-descended oligarchical power structures in the Latin American countries to keep them in power, prevent them through economic policies from developing their own strong industrial bases, and keep prices low of the raw materials these countries export, coffee, bananas, timber, minerals, etc..
The latest chapter in this tragic history is unfolding as you read this.
Thousands of native people blocked the highway in the Amazon jungle in northern Peru. (Photo: Reuters)
Lima, Peru - President Alan Garcia labored Saturday to contain Peru's worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil and gas on their native lands.
The new deaths brought to 22 the number of police killed - seven with spears - since security forces moved early Friday to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters.
Protest leaders said at least 30 Indians, including three children, died in the clashes. Authorities said they could confirm only nine civilian deaths, but cabinet chief Yehude Simon told reporters that 155 people had been injured, about a third of them with bullet wounds.
He announced a 3 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew in the affected region and said authorities had made 72 arrests.
"The government was required to take these measures, not only for the president of the republic but for all 28 million Peruvians," Simon said of breaking up the protests, which blocked the flow of oil and gas out of the Amazon and prevented food and supplies from coming in. "We've all been affected one way or another by the protest ... when they take over highways and strategic points that can affect the national economy."
The political violence is the Andean country's worst since the Shining Path insurgency was quelled more t
han a decade ago, and it bodes ill for Garcia's ambitious plans to boost Peru's oil and gas output.It began early Friday when security forces moved to break up a roadblock protesters mounted in early April. About 1,000 protesters seized police during the melee, taking more than three dozen hostage, officials said.
Twenty-two officers were rescued in Saturday's storming of Station No. 6 at state-owned Petroperu in Imacita, in the jungle state of Amazonas, Defense Minister Antero Florez told the Radioprogramas radio network. He said seven officers were missing.
Simon said the nine killed were taken more than a mile from the station and slain while an army general was negotiating protesters' retreat from the facility.
Among at least 45 casualties being treated at the main hospital in the Amazonas town of Bagua was local Indian leader Santiago Manuin, who received eight bullet wounds on Friday, said a nurse who identified herself only as "Sandra" for security reasons. She said no doctors could come to the phone because they were attending to the wounded.
Also Saturday, a judge ordered the arrest of protest group leader Alberto Pizango on sedition charges for allegedly inciting the violence, said the president
of Peru's supreme court, Javier Villa Stein.Neither Pizango nor other senior members of his organization, the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, could immediately be reached by telephone.
Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillos said Pizango had fled, likely to neighboring Bolivia where the government is dominated by the country's indigenous majority.
On Friday, Pizango accused the government of "genocide" for attacking what he called a peaceful protest. Indians have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline intermittently since April 9, demanding that Peru's government repeal laws they say help foreign companies exploit their lands.
The laws, decreed by Garcia as he implemented a Peru-U.S. free trade pact, open communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging, mining and large-scale farming, Indian leaders and environmental groups say.
In addition to violating Peru's constitution, indigenous groups add, Garcia is breaking international law by failing to obtain their consent for the projects.
Garcia defends the laws as necessary to help develop Peru. The government owns all subsoil rights across the country and Garcia has vigorously sought to exploit its mineral resources.
Contract blocks for oil and gas exploration cover approximately 72 percent of Peru's rain forest, according to a study published last year by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
And though Peru's growth rate has led Latin America in recent years, Garcia's critics say little wealth has trickled down in a country where roughly half the population is indigenous and the poverty rate tops 40 percent.
Indians say Garcia's government does not consult them in good faith before signing contracts that could affect at least 30,000 Amazon Indians across six provinces.
Last month, Roman Catholic bishops in the region issued a statement calling the complaints legitimate.
Protests prompted Garcia to declare a state of emergency on May 9, suspending some constitutional rights in four jungle provinces including Amazonas.
Because of the protests, Petroperu stopped pumping oil through its northern Peru pipeline from the jungle on April 26. Company spokesman Fernando Daffos said Friday that the interruption had cost it $448,000.
Also affected is the Argentine company Pluspetrol, which
halted oil production in two jungle blocks in the Loreto region of northeastern Peru.-------
Associated Press Writers Tamy Higa in Lima and Frank Bajak in Bogota contributed to this report.
Now, contrast the above article, from the U.S. Associated Press, with this one:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/08-3
Peru Police Accused of Disposing of Dead Indigenous to Cover Up Death Toll (6/08/09)
Indigenous Leaders and Allies Call for an End to Violence on All Sides
BAGUA, Peru - June 8 - In the aftermath of Friday’s bloody raid on a peaceful indigenous road blockade near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon, numerous eyewitnesses are reporting that the Special Forces of the Peruvian Police have been disposing of the bodies of indigenous protesters who were killed. “Today I spoke to many eyewitnesses in Bagua reporting that they saw police throw the bodies of the dead into the Marañon River from a helicopter in an apparent attempt by the Government to underreport the number of indigenous people killed by police,” said Gregor MacLennan, spokesperson for Amazon Watch speaking. “Hospital workers in Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande corroborated that the police took bodies of the dead from their premises to an undisclosed location. I spoke to several people who reported that there are bodies lying at the bottom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilometers from the incident site. When the Church and local leaders went to investigate, the police stopped them from approaching the area,” reported MacLennan.Police and government officials have been consistently underreporting the number of indigenous people killed by police gunfire.
Indigenous organizations place the number of protesters killed at least at 40, while Government officials claiming that only a handful of indigenous people were killed. Also the Garcia Government claims that 22 police officers were killed and several still missing.“Witnesses say that it was the police who opened fire last Friday on the protesters from helicopters,” MacLennan said. “Now the government appears to be destroying the bodies of slain protesters and giving very low estimates of the casualty. Given that the demonstrators were unarmed or carrying only wooden spears and the police were firing automatic weapons, the actual number of indigenous people killed is likely to be much higher.” “Another eyewitness reported seeing the bodies of five indigenous people that had been burned beyond identification at the morgue. I have listened to testimony of people in tears talking about witnessing the police burning bodies,” continued MacLennan.At least 150 people from the demonstration on Friday are still being detained.
Eye-witness reports also confirm that police forcibly removed some of the wounded indigenous protesters from hospitals, taking them to unknown destinations. Their families expressed concern for their well being while in detention. There are many people still reported missing and access to medical attention in the region is horribly inadequate. The Organizing Committee for the Indigenous Peoples of Alto Amazonas Province issued this statement: “It is appalling that political powers have acted in such a cruel and inhuman manner against Amazonian Peoples, failing to recognize the fundamental rights and protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution. We express deep grief over the death of our indigenous brothers, of civilians and the officers of the National Police.”
The government expanded the State of Emergency and established a curfew on all traffic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indigenous and international human rights organizations are worried about plans of another National Police raid on a blockade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tarapoto where thousands are blocking a road.President Alan Garcia is being widely criticized for fomenting a climate of fear mongering against indigenous peoples by drawing parallels to the brutal Shinning Path guerrilla movement of the 1980s and early 1990s, and by vaguely referring to external and anti-democratic threats to the country.
The Amazonian indigenous peoples’ mobilizations have been peaceful, locally coordinated, and extremely well organized for nearly two months. Yet Garcia insists on calling them terrorist acts and anti-democratic. Garcia has even gone so far as to describe the indigenous mobilizations as “savage and barbaric.” Garcia has made his discrimination explicit, saying directly that the Amazonian indigenous people are not first-class citizens.“These people don't have crowns," Garcia 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.”
Ironically, Peru was the country that introduced the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the floor of the General Assembly when it was adopted in September 2007. A coalition of indigenous and human rights organizations will protest in front of the Peruvian Embassy in Washington D.C. on Monday, June 8 at 12:30 pm. Indigenous peoples have vowed to continue protests until the Peruvian Congress revokes the “free trade” decrees issued by President Garcia under special powers granted by Congress in the context of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Among the outpouring of statements condemning the violence in Peru were those from Peru’s Ombudsman’s office, the chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a coalition of 45 international human rights organizations, Indigenous organizations from throughout the Americas, and the Conference of Bishops of Peru. Also famous personalities including Q’orianka Kilcher, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Hannah and Bianca Jagger called on the Peruvian Government to cease the violence and seek peaceful resolution to the conflict. AIDESEP, the national indigenous organization of Peru has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11th. Amazon Watch is continually updating photographs, audio testimony, and video footage from Bagua on www.amazonwatch.org.Newly released b-roll at http://amazonwatch.org/peru-protests-highres-photos.php
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We here at A.P.R. think it extremely likely that there is political pressure from the U.S., and corporate entities, to force an end to this conflict, in favor of the Peruvian government. Remember that "free-trade" pact with the U.S.? All of those seemingly innocuous sounding trade agreements, like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), etc.., have been disastrous for all people, and the environment, in all the countries involved, except for the very rich, and multi-national corporations. Because these agreements force the governments of the signing countries to accept economic and environmental policies that are to their detriment.
The Amazonian Rain Forest are the "lungs of the planet", providing a significant source of the global oxygen from CO2 in the atmosphere from photosynthesis by the incredibly diverse jungle vegetation. Continued deforestation there is only adding to the Global Warming problem, most of which is done for expansion of cattle ranching (for cheap U.S. and European beef), soybean farming (to feed the cattle for cheap U.S. and European beef), mining, and lately, expansion of oil and gas exploration/production.
Indigenous people in Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia have been under great threat over the last several decades, from the expansion into the Amazonian Rain Forest by these governments and multi-national corporations.
This is bad news for two reasons.
The first is the pure physical environmental destruction that is occurring, hastening Global Climate Change. Once these forests are cleared, it is hard for them to be restored, as the soils in these tropical areas are very nutrient-poor, and erode quickly. During the dry season, after being eroded in the preceding wet season, they bake under the tropical sun to a brick-hard, impoverished gully-carved surface. In which it is very difficult for vegetative re-growth to occur.
Indigenous people in Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia have been under great threat over the last several decades, from the expansion into the Amazonian Rain Forest by these governments and multi-national corporations.
This is bad news for two reasons.
The first is the pure physical environmental destruction that is occurring, hastening Global Climate Change. Once these forests are cleared, it is hard for them to be restored, as the soils in these tropical areas are very nutrient-poor, and erode quickly. During the dry season, after being eroded in the preceding wet season, they bake under the tropical sun to a brick-hard, impoverished gully-carved surface. In which it is very difficult for vegetative re-growth to occur.
This accelerates the destruction, and can lead to actual desertification of vast areas of the tropics, hastening global climate change, and removing a significant source of CO2 sequestration from the global system.
The second is that the destruction of indigenous cultures bodes ill for the future of the human race. It is our contention here at A.P.R., that all the indigenous cultures of the World's view of the planet and all creatures in it, as a unified, spiritual system, and sacredness of all it's parts must be incorporated into the prevailing "western" or "developed" culture. If we are to survive the looming threats of overpopulation/resource depletion, climate change, and environmental collapse.
For it is only by realizing that the Earth is a finite system, with limited resources, and that all countries, cultures, and beings are sacred, and equal in the overall spiritual sense, that countries and cultures can work together in trust, to solve these global problems. And that it is unsustainable and immoral that vast tracts of poor countries must produce cheap destructive products for richer countries, at the expense of their people and environment.
The next time you buy non-organic, non-free trade red meat, bananas, or coffee, try and remember these things. Because they arrive here to you at great expense and detriment to the people and countries of their origin.
This conflict in Peru now is similar to what we saw in the U.S. with the indigenous people here over the past three centuries. Did you know that if some superior culture, with the power to disable all weaponry instantaneously across the World, were to force the U.S. to honor it's treaties over the past two centuries with the indigenous people of this continent, it would cease to exist?
A small example. The Black Hills of South Dakota were ceded by the Treaty of 1868 by the U.S. Government (meaning it passed House and Senate votes, and was signed into law by President Andrew Johnson) forever to the Lakota people, which was their traditional hunting ground, and spiritual center. By 1874, the influx of miners after gold there was so great, the U.S. government forced the Lakota out, leading to the famous battles which culminated in 1876 at Little Big Horn.
This was just one example of many. The whole tragic story can be found in that seminal work which burst upon the U.S. progressive scene, in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
http://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart-Wounded-Knee/dp/0805086846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244867595&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart-Wounded-Knee/dp/0805086846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244867595&sr=8-1
This book, written by historian Dee Brown, is a devastating account of the history of indigenous peoples in the U.S., told from their viewpoints. It should be required reading in every high school and college. These kind of events are still unfolding in Latin America, because they have more indigenous people.
And we wonder why life on Indian reservations in the Lower 48, or amongst the indigenous peoples in our villages and cities, including here in Fairbanks and Anchorage seems so dysfunctional, with high rates of alcoholism/drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse, etc... We think it safe to say, if some other culture were able to forcibly impose itself upon ours, and force complete changes in our ways of living and spirituality, that we and our descendants would be in similar positions. This is still happening, in Latin America (and Africa in the Niger River Delta, with the oil industry there, imagine that...). Will it ever end?
Cheers.
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