The Government Is Not Concerned About Drug Traffickers' Attacks in the Peruvian Amazon – Global Issues
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LIMA, Jul 26 (IPS) – Attacks on indigenous communities in the Amazon are on the rise in Peru, thanks to drug lords who are expanding coca plants to produce and export cocaine, while deforestation and the insecurity of indigenous peoples and their representatives are on the rise.
“Drug trafficking is not a myth or something new in this area, and we are the ones who defend our right to live in peace in our country,” said Kakataibo indigenous leader Marcelo Odicio, in the municipality of Aguaytía, the capital of Aguaytía province. Padre Abad, in the Amazonian department of Ucayali.
Of the 33 million inhabitants of the South American country, about 800,000 belong to 51 Amazonian tribes. In total, 96.4% of the indigenous population are Quechua and Aymara, six million of whom live in the Andean regions, while the Amazon forest people make up another 3.6%.
The Peruvian government is constantly criticized for failing to meet the needs and demands of this population, who face many deficiencies in health, education, income generation and access to opportunities, as well as the growing impact of drug trafficking, illegal logging and mining.
A clear example of this is the situation of the Kakataibo people in their two indigenous communities, Puerto Nuevo and Sinchi Roca, on the border between the departments of Huánuco and Ucayali, in the forest region of central-eastern Peru.
For years they have been reporting and protesting the existence of forest invaders for illegal purposes, while the government is ignoring and taking no action.
The latest threat led them to use their native guards to protect themselves from new groups of outsiders who, through videos, announced their decision to settle in areas where the Kakataibo people have ancestral rights, supported by titles granted by the departmental authorities.
Six Kakataibo leaders who were defending their lands and way of life were killed in recent years. The latest was Mariano Isacama, whose body was found by a traditional guard on Sunday 14 July after disappearing for weeks.
In his interview with IPS, Odicio, president of the Native Federation of Kakataibo Communities (Fenacoka), lamented the failure of the authorities to find Isacama. A leader from the community of Puerto Azul was threatened by people connected to drug trafficking, the coalition alleges.
During a press conference in Lima on July 17, the Interethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep), which includes 109 associations representing 2,439 indigenous communities, blamed the government's indifference to the situation of the disappeared and killed leader, bringing the number to 35 of Amazonian indigenous people killed between 2023 and 2024.
Aidesep declared the area of the indigenous people of the Amazon under a state of emergency and asked for measures to defend themselves and protect themselves from what they called “unpunished violence caused by drug trafficking, illegal mining and logging under the protection of authorities associated with indifference, inefficiency and corruption.”
Having no idea about Amazon
The province of Aguaytía, where the municipality of Padre de Abad is located and where the Kakataibo live, among other indigenous peoples, will account for 4.3% of the area planted with coca leaves in 2023, about 4,019 hectares, according to the latest report of the National Government Commission Development and Health Without Drugs (Devida).
It is the sixth largest producer of this plant in the country.
The report highlights that Peru has reduced illegal coca cultivation by a little more than 2% between 2022 and 2023, from 95,008 to 92,784 hectares, thus halting the trend of permanent growth over the past seven years.
These figures are questioned by Ricardo Soberón, an expert on drug policy, security and Amazonia.
“The latest World Drug Report shows that we have gone from 22 million to 23 million cocaine users, and that the golden triangle in Burma, the triple border of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and the Amazonian trapezoid are privileged areas for production and export,” the Soberon. he told IPS.
The latter owns “Putumayo and Yaguas, areas that according to Devida have reduced 2,000 cultivated hectares. I don't believe it,” he said.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which approved the report, also lists Peru as the second largest producer of cocaine in the world.
Soberón added another factor that discredits the conclusions of the Devida report: the government's behavior.
“There is no air ban in the Amazonian trapezoid, the non-lethal ban agreement with the United States will come into effect in 2025. On the other hand, there are complaints against the anti-narcotics police in Loreto, the department where Putumayo and Yaguas. are located, to communicate with the Brazilian mafia,” he explained.
He believes that there has been an attempt to refine the “completely divided government”, referring to the administration led since December 2022 by interim president Dina Boluarte, with low levels of approval and he was asked about a series of democratic problems.
Soberón, director of Devida in 2011-2012 and 2021-2022, has always warned that the government, at different levels, did not include the indigenous agenda in its policies against illegality in their ancestral lands.
This, he said, is despite increasing pressure on people and their lands from “the world's largest illegal mining economies: drug trafficking, logging and gold mining,” which are the main causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss and land dispossession.
Soberón argued that, given the magnitude of cocaine trafficking in the world, major trafficking groups need places to store coca plants, and the Peruvian area is ideal for that. He underestimated the narrow strategic vision among political, economic, commercial and social actors in the Amazon.
Based on previous research, he says that the Cauca-Nariño bridge in southern Colombia, Putumayo in Peru, and parts of Brazil, form the Amazonian trapezoid: a place to transport liquids not only for cocaine, but also arms, goods and gold.
Hence the large flow of cocaine in the area, for smuggling and distribution in the United States and other markets, making indigenous areas such as the Peruvian Amazon forests attractive to coca plants and cocaine laboratories.
Soberón emphasizes the possibility of harmonizing the anti-drug policy with the protection of the Amazon, for example by promoting the citizen's social agreements that he himself developed as an experimental project during his time in office.
He said it is a matter of changing social actors such as the natives to make decisions. But this requires clear political will, which is not evident in the current Devida administration.
“We will not stand idly by”
Odicio, the president of Fenacoka, knows that the increase of invaders in their lands is aimed at planting pastures and coca leaf, an activity that destroys their forests. They have even installed maceration ponds near the communities.
When the invaders come, they cut down the trees, burn them, raise cattle, eat the land and demand the right to have the title, he explained. “After the law against forests, they feel empowered and say that they have the right to the land when it is not the case,” he said.
He refers to the amendment of the Forestry and Wildlife Act No. 29763, effective from December 2023, which continues to weaken the protection of indigenous peoples regarding their land rights and opens the door to legal and illegal expropriation activities.
A leader with a wife and two young children knows that the role of protector exposes him. “We are the ones who pay, we are seen by criminals, we are called informers, but I will continue to protect our rights. Together with the native guards, we will ensure that the independence of our area is respected,” he stressed.
In the traditional community of Puerto Nuevo there are 200 Kakataibo families, and another 500 in Sinchi Roca. They live off the sustainable use of their forest resources, which are vulnerable to illegal activities. “We want to live in peace, but we will defend ourselves because we cannot stand idly by if they do not respect our independence,” he said.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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