Peru's premier quits after protests end in bloodshed
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The Prime Minister of Peru has announced he will resign, following weeks of turmoil in which scores of police and protesters have been killed in clashes over threats to the land rights of Amazon Indians.
Yehude Simon promised to leave office as soon as he can persuade the country's parliament to repeal two controversial new laws that would open vast swaths of the homeland of indigenous tribes to exploitation by foreign-owned mining and energy companies.
In a surprise announcement, made during an interview with Lima's RPP radio, Mr Simon said he will formally resign from President Alan Garcia's government "in the coming weeks, as soon as all is calm".
It came as opposition parties criticised his failure to avert bloodshed, despite spending months in negotiations with indigenous groups worried by the proposed laws, which would dramatically increase oil and logging concessions in 67 million hectares of rainforest.
Earlier this month, 2,000 Aguaruna and Wampi Indians, many carrying spears and machetes, clashed with heavily-armed police who tried to clear them from a blockaded road near the rural town of Bagua Grande, 870 miles north of the capital. Although the official death toll is just 34, hundreds of protesters are still missing. It has been described as "the Amazon's Tiananmen" and appears to have been sparked when police fired tear gas and automatic weapons into a crowd of aggressive protesters.
Following nationwide outrage, and a one-day general strike, a curfew around the surrounding area was lifted on Monday. As a result, international agencies are now starting to arrive on the scene to investigate reports that bodies may have been burned and buried in mass graves.
Mr Simon, a former left-wing activist who was made Prime Minister in October, becomes the second cabinet member, after the populist minister Carmen Vildoso, to resign over the incident. "This is a significant step. Yehude Simon is often seen as a potential presidential candidate" said Jonathan Mazower, an expert on Peruvian affairs for the London-based pressure group Survival International. "It's doubtful, though, that in itself it will be enough to mollify the indigenous movement, which is extremely angry at what has happened, and absolutely determined not to let the protesters' deaths be in vain."
Meanwhile Alberto Pizango, the leader of the country's Amazon Indians remains at the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima, where he fled after being charged with "sedition, conspiracy and rebellion". Though recently granted political asylum in the country, he has yet to be granted safe passage out of Peru.
Mr Simon had earlier announced, during a visit to Amazon tribal chiefs, that a bill was to be submitted to parliament lifting the temporary suspension of laws barring the logging of trees in the rainforest. He said that other unpopular decrees could also be repealed.
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Comments
As an American native (born in Iowa) who fled the USA with the rise of the neocons and W Bush's desire to advance a global war of "Gog and Megog" with his lapdog Tony Blair in their wrongful invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., I lived in Peru and watched the carnage where Garcia's thugs (national police) shot men who were either unarmed or carrying spears, with the "guards" chanting "shoot him in the head" of those laying prone on the ground while others threw women and children from cliffs (there are a host of photos on the internet of this massacre)--all in Garcia's quest to wrest the Amazon lands from its inhabitants and occupants to further the nefarious NAFTA (TLC) goals that would further enrich the white supremacist/racists who control the government and its major industries and businesses.
Alberto Pizango, the leader of the country's Amazon Indians, was one of the few level and sane voices demanding rights of the Amazonian people to determine their own destiny and not to be shoved out by Shell Oil and other megacountry controllers. Yehude Simon attempted to appease Alberto Pizango with tokenism, but that stopped after the massacre of the Amazonians by Garcia's guards and his police. Pizango is one of Peru's greatest men and should return, while it is time that Garcia once more flee from the nation he has too often attempted to destroy. Peru will remain impoverished until its education system is overhauled dramatically (I have a nephew here who has had four years of "English" and can read--with poor pronunciation--words but has no idea of what they mean, has no grammar, and cannot write a coherent sentence; another nephew who is in secondary schools and is still learning basic mathematics, etc.), jobs are created that respect the rights of workers (at present while the law mandates an 8 hour work day, most laborers in the fields, banks, malls, etc. work 12-14 hours a day and make marginal salaries/income), and the natural resources of Peru are used first for Peruanos and not for exportation.