Other sites have been presenting an excellent range of reports and other resources concerning the ongoing Amazonian indigenous conflict with the government of Peruvian President Alan García who has called for “order, energy, action” against the forces of “irrationality” that will bring Peru to a “backward, primitive state,” calling the indigenous protesters “pseudo-natives” and their representatives, “pseudo-leaders”. Now reports are emerging that as many as 250 Amazonian Indians have been killed by the Peruvian state in this conflict, in an apparent demonstration of the order, civility, and rationality of the progressive state. Eyewitnesses are also saying that, in an attempt to under report the number of those killed by the state, security forces have been dumping the bodies of dead Indians from helicopters into the Marañon and Utcubamba Rivers, while other bodies are showing up at morgues burned beyond recognition, and over 150 protesters continue to be detained, in some cases in unknown locations (see more here). On 09 May 2009 the Peruvian government imposed a state of siege on the Amazon provinces of Bagua and Utcubamba, suspending all constitutionally-protected liberties.

Q’orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in The New World, has also entered the fray, on the side of the indigenous protesters. She also spoke on Democracy Now! (here and here). (See Kilcher’s blog on the situation, and her interview in English on her arrival in Peru.) Kilcher has also agreed to serve as the foreign representative of Peru’s AIDESEP.

Otherwise, we should consider how the international media is now focusing on events in Iran, and totally ignoring what is happening in Peru, as if Peruvian “democracy” were more real than Iran’s and thus “safer”. Are Peru’s Amazonian Indians really less deserving than Iranians, inferior, not as important?

For more information, see the following sites:

• Amazon Watch
• Intercontinental Cry
• Flickr: Peru — Amazonian Indigenous Crisis (Ben Powless’ photo stream)
• NACLA: Blood at the Blockade – Peru’s Indigenous Uprising
• Peruanista blog
• Ray Beckerman’s Links: The Struggle of the Indigenous People of the Amazon Rainforest in Peru to preserve the precious rainforest and their way of life

Action resources:

• Amazon Watch: Send a message to the President of Peru
• Petition: Protect Indigenous Rights