Police Gun Down Peruvian Indians
Posted on 05 June 2009 by Jim Walrod
Protesters and police clashed on a remote jungle highway in the Peruvian Amazon, leaving at least nine people dead including four police, officials and indigenous leaders said.
Indigenous communities in Peru, demanding more control over natural resources, have blocked roads and waterways off-and-on in a bid to get the government to revoke a series of investment rules passed last year and revise concessions granted to foreign energy companies who want to plunder the Indian’s resources. Gee this sounds familiar.
Friday’s confrontation, which protesters say happened when armed forces opened fire on them from helicopters, is by far the most violent act of the demonstrations so far.
It occurred in a resource-rich area of the Amazon where big energy companies are looking to develop oil and natural gas projects.
Government officials claim they were fired on first when police tried to clear a highway that protesters were blocking.
Police officials say they have no information regarding civilian deaths but local leaders have said at least five protesters were also killed.
The death toll is expected to climb as dozens of people are reported injured.
The contested highway is located in the Bagua province, in a remote Amazon region of northern Peru.
My guess is that if their names are not on the books in some government office, then the government does not consider them human, thus they are considered expendable. The government can’t kill what does not have a birth certificate in the first place. I have found this to be the case in other countries where the poor are cast aside, like China for example. Anyone who lives outside the urban areas are not counted by the government. The big earthquake that was said to have killed many tens of thousands in China last year actually had a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, because the Chinese govt did not report the deaths of the tribal areas. Believe it, or not, but it is true.
The rich and getting rich countries of the world treat the “marginal” residents the same. In America we call it dropping off the grid or falling through the safety net. What it amounts to is the willingness of the majority to insist on equal protection for the minority. As the holes in the grid widen more people fall through them and the minority becomes the majority. Then comes the violence and the blood.