LIMA, July 26 (IPS) – Invasion of lands inhabited by indigenous Amazon communities is increasing in Peru as drug trafficking mafias expand coca crops to produce and export cocaine, leading to increased deforestation and instability for indigenous people and their advocates.
“Drug trafficking is not a myth or something new in this region. We are the ones who defend the right to live in peace on our land,” said Marcelo Audisio, a Cacataybo indigenous leader in Aguaitía, the capital of Padre Abad department in the Amazon.
Of the 33 million inhabitants of the South American country, about 800,000 belong to 51 Amazonian indigenous groups. Overall, 96.4% of the indigenous population are Quechua and Aymara, 6 million of whom live in the Andes region, while the remaining 3.6% are Amazonian jungle peoples.
The Peruvian government is constantly criticized for failing to meet the needs and demands of the region’s people, who face multiple disadvantages in terms of health, education, income generation and access to opportunity, and as drug trafficking, illegal logging and mining grow.
A clear example of this is the plight of the Cacataybo in Puerto Nuevo and Cinchi Roca, two indigenous communities on the border of the departments of Huánuco and Ucayali in the central-eastern jungle of Peru.
For years they have been reporting and protesting the presence of invaders cutting down the forest for illegal purposes, but the government has paid no attention and has taken no action.
The latest threat has led to the deployment of the Native Guard to defend against attacks by outsiders, who have declared in the video that they are determined to occupy the territory to which the Kakataibo people have ancestral rights, and these rights are supported by titles granted by the departmental authorities.
In recent years, six Kakataibo leaders who defended their land and way of life have been killed. The most recent case is that of Mariano Isacama, whose body was found by indigenous guards on Sunday, July 14, after being missing for several weeks.
In an interview with IPS, Odicio, President Kakataibo Community Aboriginal Association (Penacoca) lamented that authorities had not been able to find Isacama. The federation suspects that the leader of Puerto Azul’s indigenous community had received threats from people connected to drug trafficking.
At a press conference held in Lima on July 17th Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungles (Aidesep) brings together 109 federations representing 2,439 indigenous communities and denounces the government’s indifference to the plight of missing and murdered leaders, bringing the total number of murdered Amazonian indigenous people to 35 between 2023 and 2024.
Aidesep declared a state of emergency in the territories of indigenous Amazonians and called for self-defense and protection mechanisms against “impunent violence resulting from drug trafficking, mining and illegal logging, under the protection of authorities who are indifferent, incompetent and complicit in corruption.”
Lack of vision for Amazon
The province of Aguaytía, where the municipality of Padre de Abad is located and where the Kakataibo and other indigenous people live, is expected to account for 4.3% of the coca leaf cultivation area, or about 4,019 hectares, by 2023. Latest Report By the government Committee for National Development and Drug Free Life (Debida).
It is the sixth largest producer of this crop in the country.
The report highlighted that Peru reduced its illicit coca crop by more than 2% from 95,008 hectares to 92,784 hectares between 2022 and 2023, halting a seven-year trend of permanent expansion.
Ricardo Soberon, an expert on drug policy, security and the Amazon, questions these figures.
“According to the latest World Drug Report, the number of cocaine users has increased from 22 million to 23 million, and the golden triangle of Burma, the triple border of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and the Amazon trapezoid are privileged areas for production and export,” Soberon told IPS.
The latter, he said, “holds the provinces of Putumayo and Yaguas, where, according to Devida, the cultivated area has decreased by 2,000 hectares. I can’t believe it.”
that much United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which commissioned the report Peru list It is the world’s second largest producer of cocaine.
Soberon added another factor that makes the conclusions of the Devi report less credible: government action.
“There is no air blockade in the Amazon trapezoid, and the non-lethal blockade agreement with the United States is scheduled to come into effect in 2025. On the other hand, there are complaints against the anti-narcotics police in the Loreto region, where Putumayo and Yaguas are located, because of their links to the Brazilian mafia,” he explained.
He believes there has been an attempt to cover up a “completely isolated government,” referring to the administration led by interim president Dina Boluarte since December 2022, which has been questioned for its minimal level of approval and a series of democratic setbacks.
Soberon, who served as director of Devida in 2011-2012 and 2021-2022, has repeatedly warned that the government has failed to address indigenous concerns in its policies to combat illegal activities in ancestral territories.
He said this was despite the growing pressure on their people and lands from what he called “the world’s largest illegal extractive economy – drug trafficking, logging and gold mining”, a major driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss and territorial dispossession.
Soberon argued that given the scale of the global illicit cocaine trade, major illicit trafficking groups need to stockpile coca crops, and Peruvian territory is ideal for this. He lamented the minimal strategic vision among political, economic, commercial and social actors in the Amazon.
He says, based on previous research, that the Cauca-Nariño bridge in southern Colombia, the Putumayo in Peru, and parts of Brazil form the Amazon Trapezoid, a fluid transport route for not only cocaine but also weapons, supplies, gold, and more.
As a result, cocaine is being traded in large quantities in the region for smuggling and distribution to the United States and other markets, while indigenous areas such as the jungles of the Peruvian Amazon have become attractive sites for coca crops and cocaine laboratories.
Soberon emphasizes that it is possible to reconcile anti-drug policies with Amazon protection, for example by promoting civil society pacts that he himself developed as pilot projects during his tenure.
He said it was a matter of transforming social actors, such as indigenous people, into decision makers. But this would require clear political will, something that is currently missing from the Debida administration.
“We won’t just sit still.”
Peñacoca’s president, Odisio, knows that the increasing incursions into their territory are for pastures and coca leaf planting, an activity that destroys their forests. They have even installed infiltration ponds near the community.
When the invaders arrive, they cut down trees, burn them, raise livestock, take over the land and then claim ownership, he explained. “After the anti-forestry law, they became strong and said they have rights to the land, but that is not true,” he said.
He refers to the reform of Forestry and Wildlife Law No. 29763, which came into effect in December 2023. weakens the security of indigenous peoples Violations of land rights have opened the door to legal and illegal mining activities.
The leader, who has a wife and two young children, knows that his role as a defender exposes him. “We are the ones who pay the consequences, we are visible to criminals, we are labeled as informants, but I will continue to defend our rights. I will work with the indigenous guards to ensure that the autonomy of our territory is respected,” he stressed.
There are 200 Cacataybo families in the indigenous community of Puerto Nuevo, and another 500 in Sinchi Loca. They live by using forest resources that are endangered by illegal activities sustainably. “We just want to live in peace, but if they don’t respect our autonomy, we can’t just sit back and do nothing, so we will defend ourselves,” he said.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal Source: Inter Press Service
