Peru: TUC condemns attacks on indigenous peoples

ILO Committee on the Application of Standards

Intervention by Amanda Brown, NUT

June 2009

Chairperson, in view of your previous comments to our sisters and brothers I will not intervene in the way I had intended. I had also intended to speak of the shocking and horrifying violence and deaths in the Bagua region as I believe this to be a result of this breach of Convention 169. I will confine myself instead to saying that these events, which were referred to in the press reports that I saw as 'a massacre', followed two months of peaceful protest by indigenous peoples of Peru and supporters. Protest at legislation that has been pushed through by the Peruvian government in breach of rights under convention 169 which provides for proper consultation with indigenous peoples.

Convention 169 allows for recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples to live without exclusion or discrimination. It recognizes indigenous peoples' right to live freely in their lands and territories and to maintain collective property for future generations. It provides special protection to prevent loss of livelihood and the benefit of the use of the resources.

But Peru, last year, adopted laws to enable communal land to be disposed of more easily. This is not only in violation of the constitutional rights of participation and consultation of rural and native communities, but also in breach of the fundamental rights recognized by the Peruvian constitution.

For decades, natural resources have been exploited ruthlessly without participation or consultation with the people who occupy those lands. Peru's mining and oil policy contains no guarantees of participation for its indigenous peoples. Millions of hectares of oil and gas deposits have been mined, millions of hectares of virgin forest have been assigned for reforestation, all without reference to the peoples who are guaranteed rights within convention 169. And also without reference to the rights of fair compensation for damage to territories, with the benefits of this exploitation being kept by state institutions and the corporations involved.

And instead of promoting a national agrarian programme which guarantees a sufficient area of land for indigenous communities, and protects the cultural and ethnic plurality of the Peruvian nation as required by Convention 169, the government has instead promoted the dissolution of communities and the advancement and profit of individual producers.

Most fundamentally of all, as pointed out by the Committee of Experts' report and the Employers' Spokesperson today, the Peruvian Constitution is contradictory and vague, not making explicit which of its people is entitled to claim the guarantee of convention rights. Instead of using the term 'indigenous people', the Peruvian constitution uses terms 'native community' and 'rural communities' which are leftovers from colonial days, sowing confusion as to scope of those legal protections which do exist.

But Peru's failure to answer the Committee or to bring its laws into compliance is no surprise. Labour practices and laws have also not been brought into conformity and the failure to act on the breaches of Convention 169 follows the same pattern.

The government's current policy tends to deny the existence of indigenous peoples, repeatedly and publicly throwing doubt as to their existence and rights. President Garcia has publicly questioned the validity of communal lands and stated that the only way of guaranteeing development is that it should be left to major companies and multinationals. He has ridiculed the demands of indigenous organizations and environmentalists, claiming that they are motivated only by anti capitalist or protectionist ideology and are an enemy of development in Peru. The President stands out against the recognition of isolated indigenous peoples, saying that this is a mere invention, a fiction, even in the face of their recognition by many institutions and organizations, such as the Peruvian Ombudsman, the Ministry of Health, the Inter American Commission of Human Rights and others.

Chairperson, more than 70 per cent of the Peruvian Amazon is now up for grabs for private profit, with giant oil and gas companies like the Anglo-French Perenco and the North Americans ConocoPhillips and Talisman Energy already investing billions of dollars into extracting natural resources from this region. For decades indigenous people have watched as these industries devastated the rainforest that is their home, as well as a vital treasure to us all.

This Committee must respond with a strong and clear determination in the face of this flagrant breach of convention 169 and the terrible price, the ultimate price, paid by the people of Peru who have sought to defend their rights and oppose the terrible and terrifying destruction of these lands.

• Amanda Brown was the TUC delegate on the Committee on the Application of Standards at the 2009 International Labour Conference. She is the legal officer of the National Union of Teachers (NUT).