IACHR grants precautionary measures to families of the Kichwa community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures to families from the Kichwa Indigenous community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku in the San Martin region of Peru, considering their situation serious and urgent, as their rights to life and personal integrity are at risk of irreparable harm. This decision by the IACHR joins other international exhortations to the Peruvian State to safeguard, in practice and not just on paper, life in Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku, in a context of state withdrawal in the Chipurana valley, legal territorial insecurity, the presence and intensification of illegal economies, threats and harassment of those who defend their territory, and even the tragic murder of the Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma.

Through Resolution 13/2024, the IACHR has considered that the families of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku community are in a serious and urgent situation, given that their rights to life and personal integrity are at risk of irreparable harm. The Inter-American Commission therefore considered that the requirements established in article 25 of the IACHR Rules of Procedure had been met and declared the request for precautionary measures presented by the Federation of Indigenous Kechwa Chazuta Amazonian Peoples (FEPIKECHA), the Coordinator for the Development and Defence of the Indigenous Peoples of San Martin (CODEPISAM), the Institute for Legal Defence (IDL) and the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) to be well-founded.

 

In the precautionary measures, the IACHR requests the Peruvian State to:

"a) adopt the necessary and culturally appropriate measures to safeguard the life and personal integrity of the beneficiaries. Among other things, it is requested to implement the measures that are indispensable to guarantee that the beneficiaries who are displaced in the city of Tarapoto can return safely to their community;

b) agree on the measures to be implemented with the beneficiaries and/or their representatives;

c) report on the actions taken to investigate the alleged facts that gave rise to the present precautionary measures and thus avoid their repetition".

 

The granting of these precautionary measures comes almost four months after the tragic murder of Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, where the authorities are still on the trail of two intellectual and material perpetrators of the crime, while three others are being held in pre-trial detention and are facing investigations into the case as members of the alleged criminal gang "The Jackals of Santa Rosillo".

 

"How do I feel? Very happy because the Commission has given the Peruvian State an earful. We are very happy, the family, all of us. Let's hope that now the State will give us security for our families on the trails, on the rivers, on our journeys. That's what it's all about. It should have been like this when apu Quinto was alive. We will never get him back, never! But although he is no longer alive, he always accompanies us as defenders who continue, we don't stop the rhythm, we are not going to give up in the face of illegality. We are going forward with more strength". Manuel Inuma, apu of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku

 

In its evaluation, the Commission fairly reflects the complex social conflict presented to the community by the applicants for precautionary measures:  one where there is a growing wave of threats since 2018 to those who defend the communal territory;  delays in collective titling and the granting of rights to third parties by the Peruvian State; a context that has reportedly facilitated polarisation within the community's territory, that materialised with the creation of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku hamlet as a parallel structure to undermine the authority of the community's leaders.

The IACHR also takes note of the long list of legal complaints presented by community leaders due to the proliferation of illegal activities; the weakness of the mechanism for granting personal guarantees and the Intersectoral Mechanism created to protect the lives of human rights defenders. It also reflects the shortcomings of the Peruvian State, which does not assign the economic or logistical means necessary for its life protection operations, and the terrible episode of the murder of Quinto Inuma, as well as recent threats even when the community members of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku have been turned into refugees outside the community in a precarious situation of displacement and uprooting.

In fact, the IACHR highlights the lack of adequate information from the State on the investigation of the murder of Quinto Inuma and on the investigations of other reported incidents, which was decisive in assessing the risk faced by the members of the community and in granting the precautionary measures: "...although the State indicated the steps taken after the murder of Q.I.A., it did not provide information on its current status, nor on the status of the investigations that may be underway on the other incidents reported over time. This is a relevant aspect when establishing the risk that the proposed beneficiaries would face and the possibilities of repetition, especially when considering that some "settlers" allegedly possess firearms, among other lethal weapons such as machetes" (paragraph 56).

Although the IACHR clarifies that it does not have the competence to rule on the resolution of the territorial dispute, it does positively note that the "risk events reported are related to actions in defence of the communal territory" (paragraph 38), and therefore the need to protect the families of the community "who have a position of collective protection of the community, or adopt actions in favour of the security of the families and the collective titling of their territory" (paragraph 38). Thus "...the Commission considers that the absence of legal security over the community's territory generates an additional impact to the contextual problems in which the situation of the proposed beneficiaries is inserted" (paragraph 43). The community's titling process remains at a standstill, despite the fact that in November 2021 an ad hoc commission was created within the Technical Committee for the Titling of Native Communities of San Martin to address the community's case.

In addition, the Commission encouraged the Peruvian State to broaden its understanding of what protection measures should entail, such as providing psychological support to persons who have experienced threats and violence: "...the Commission understands that, within the framework of certain protection measures, psychological accompaniment is often provided to persons who have been exposed to situations of risk and violence, such as the violent murder of a family member or community leader. In this regard, the Commission believes that this possibility can be evaluated as part of the additional or reinforced measures that can be adopted within the framework of Peruvian institutions. In particular, and at the very least, to the relatives of the murdered indigenous leader" (paragraph 55).

The Commission also encouraged addressing the risks arising from the logistics/travel and digital access/communication challenges: "...an updated risk assessment should be carried out with a view to identifying the most appropriate and effective measures for the situation at hand. In the framework of such an updated assessment, the Commission considers that actions that have been working can be included as well as those that need to be strengthened. In this space, among other proposals that the State may have, those that indicate the need to adopt measures to address the risks in transit to the community and possible communication difficulties in the area could be considered" (paragraph 54).

The IACHR has given the State of Peru a period of 15 days to report on the adoption of the precautionary measures granted in favour of the families of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku and to update this information periodically