[News] Oil Spill Devastates Amazon Region in Peru

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Oil Spill Devastates Amazon Region in Peru

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2582-oil-spill-devastates-amazon-region-in-peru
Written by David Hill
Wednesday, 07 July 2010 12:24


On June 19 hundreds of barrels of oil were 
spilled in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon, 
leading to calls for a ‘state of emergency’ to be 
declared and an appeal to the United Nations to intervene.

The oil was spilled by Argentine company 
Pluspetrol on the River Maranon in Loreto, 
northern Peru. This is far from the first time. 
According to a June 25 article in the Peruvian 
weekly 
<http://www.hildebrandtensustrece.com/index.html>Hildebrandt 
en sus trece, the same company has spilled oil 78 
times in the last four years in this region: four 
spills in 2006, 23 in 2007, 18 in 2008, 23 in 2009, and 10 this year already.

‘We went down to the river to do our washing and 
realised there were traces of oil in the water. 
That was a shock. We went a little further along 
the bank and soon realised that there were 
patches of oil everywhere in the river,’ said one 
local resident in an interview with radio station 
La Voz de la Selva, which has followed events closely.

Local reaction has centred on two main concerns. 
First, the fact that so many people rely on the 
river for their survival. According to leading 
indigenous organization 
<http://www.aidesep.org.pe/>Asociación 
Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana 
(AIDESEP), at least 28 indigenous communities - 
in other words, thousands of people - use the 
river for their drinking water, cooking and fishing.

Second, the fact that Pluspetrol’s and the 
Peruvian authorities’ response to the spill was 
so patently inadequate. A statement from a 
coalition of local organizations accused 
Pluspetrol of failing to act quickly enough, and 
Peru’s Energy Ministry of playing down the 
gravity of the spill. ‘It’s not like the Gulf of 
Mexico,’ the Energy Minister was quoted as saying.

Tragically, this is nothing new in northern Peru 
where 
<http://www.earthrights.org/publication/legacy-harm>oil 
has devastated indigenous land and lives for 
decades. On the River Corrientes, Amazon Watch, 
Earthrights International and Peruvian NGO 
Racimos de Ungurahui estimate that nine billion 
barrels of toxic waste have been dumped into 
streams and wetlands since the 1970s.

"On the international news the Gulf spill is 
priority news. Presidents of governments and 
multinationals speak about the BP disaster, but 
nobody is talking about the damage suffered by 
our river and communities," said the 
<http://www.redambientalloretana.org/>Loreto 
Environmental Network (RAL), a local 
environmental watchdog based in Iquitos, the biggest town in the region.

Worse, speaking out against this damage makes you 
enemies. Peru’s Minister of the Interior decided 
to 
<http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6176>expel 
Paul McAuley, president of the RAL. McAuley has 
been a fierce critic of environmenta and human 
rights abuses in northern Peru for years. In 
response 
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/missionary-defending-amazon-tribes-peru-must-not-be-deported-2010-07-07>Amnesty 
International has called on the Peruvian government to reverse its decision.

“The government’s attitude towards Indigenous 
people and those who work to protect their rights 
is deeply disturbing,” said Guadalupe Marengo, 
Deputy Americas Director at Amnesty 
International. “This attempt to expel a human 
rights advocate who has worked tirelessly to 
protect Amazon communities and their environment 
is the latest example of the attack on Indigenous 
People’s rights that is taking place in Peru.”

McAuley, who has lived in Peru for 20 years and 
who faces deportation today, said "What we do at 
the Loreto Environmental Network is 
awareness-raising so that biodiversity is treated 
legally and responsibly. To some people that 
seems to be a threat, or contrary to public 
order. Our work is to educate people."
These are grim times in Peru. Since the 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/1895-50-days-of-protest-and-one-massacre-in-the-peruvian-amazon>tragic 
violence at Bagua last year, when armed 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/1896-massacre-in-peru-photo-essay-and-dispatch-on-the-bloody-conflict>Peruvian 
police attacked indigenous protesters, the 
government has been actively persecuting 
indigenous leaders and trying to undermine their 
organizations. Now it appears to be doing the same to their allies.

At the same time, the government continues on its 
course to open up as much of the Amazon as 
possible to oil and gas companies. In recent 
months, representatives from Perupetro, the state 
oil and gas agency, have been touring cities like 
London and Paris announcing a further 10.6 
million hectares of the Amazon are open for business this year.

AIDESEP have condemned Perupetro’s plans and said 
that indigenous people have not been consulted. 
Last month, in a move that provoked storms of 
criticism, president Alan Garcia 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/24/peru-president-blocks-conservation-law>blocked 
a law that would have recognized indigenous 
people's right to consultation about projects 
affecting their communities and land.

David Hill is a researcher with 
<http://www.survivalinternational.org/>Survival.




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