Ending Impunity: Confronting the drivers of violence and forest destruction on the agribusiness and extractives frontier in the Peruvian Amazon: a rights-based analysis

On the eve of a 6 October hearing in which Indigenous defenders will take their struggles to the regional human rights body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a new report published by Forest Peoples Programme identifies the principal direct and underlying drivers of violence against human rights and environmental defenders and forest destruction in the Peruvian Amazon.

The report, Ending Impunity,(If you use Google Chrome, you may have to download to view this report, or use another browser) finds that Indigenous Peoples impacted by the global commodity frontier frequently face intimidation for defending their collective rights and territories amidst the expansion of logging, industrial agriculture, extractive projects and investments, and narcotics production.

The report outlines how the Peruvian State allocates land and concession rights to settlers and companies, often exposing Indigenous territories to dispossession by failing to properly recognise and secure these collective lands and forests. The State then largely abandons affected communities as they resist violence and repression for asserting their collective rights and seeking justice for violations and environmental destruction.

The report shares testimonies, stories and case studies from communities such as the Shipibo-Konibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya in Ucayali and the Kichwa community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu in San Martin. Such frontline communities have been defending their territories against land invasions, logging and agribusiness expansion for years, facing death threats, beatings and shootings in the process. Rather than supporting these community-led forms of territorial protection, the State’s response is indifference, at best offering frontline Indigenous leaders and defenders ineffective protection protocols for human rights defenders, which are reactive insofar as they fail to address the underlying drivers of such conflicts.

 

"Before, we used to set out from here to go hunting and sleep in the forest. We would stay out for anywhere between eight and fifteen days... Nowadays, if they see us, the people there act like thugs, treating us as though we were thieves. We used to walk freely. They are putting an end to our customs. Who's responsible? The State."

 

- Wilson Barbaran Soria, leader from Santa Clara de Uchunya, whose traditional lands have been deforested and converted to oil palm plantations

The expansion of the industrial agribusiness and extractive frontier that drives this violence and environmental conflict associated with both ‘legal’ and illegal commodity supply chains is often funded by overseas investors and financiers based in the US, UK, the EU and offshore tax havens. This global finance industry is largely unaccountable and hidden behind the complex and opaque structures of private international finance.

On the ground, the violence directed towards Indigenous rights defenders and communities is often led by armed groups engaged in illegal resource extraction, land trafficking or narcotics production linked to the regional and global drugs trade, whose activities are often interwoven with ‘legal’ commodity markets through money laundering and land acquisition on the forest frontier.

The report finds that Peru’s administrative and judicial systems are failing to prevent these violations, by failing to provide effective protection for rights defenders and denying effective redress in response to community denunciations. International corporate actors and investors are also turning a blind eye to gross violations of human rights, land conflicts and forest clearance.

Ending Impunity concludes with a series of recommendations to the Peruvian Government, as well as national and international companies and investors, on actions required to address the root causes of violence and put an end to impunity for those responsible for driving violence against communities and the destruction of the Peruvian Amazon.

These include:

• Respect and protect Indigenous lands - The Peruvian Government must desist from issuing any further rights to third parties, which might affect untitled Indigenous territories and resources in the Amazon until effective mechanisms are put in place to provisionally safeguard these traditional lands, in line with Peru’s human rights obligations;
• Support community-led forms of territorial protection - The Government must endorse, value and where necessary support Indigenous Peoples’ initiatives to defend and protect their territories, including monitoring and surveillance by communities and their designated guards;
• Support Indigenous defenders and community-based prevention and protection systems - The Government must recognise and provide resources to support community-based systems for prevention of and protection against threats and violence;
• Undertake human rights due diligence and halt destructive investments - Companies and investors must instigate more rigorous practical due diligence to ensure their operations and investments in Peru respect the human rights of affected peoples, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a devastating health crisis across the Peruvian Amazon, frontline Indigenous and land defenders have faced an intensification in pressures upon their territories accompanied by threats, attacks and killings. This violence has claimed the lives of at least half a dozen defenders since the health state of emergency was decreed by Peru in March 2020.

In early October, the Regional Indigenous Organisation of Ucayali (ORAU) reported an assault and shooting against one of their staff members on 1 October, which took place in the Yarinacocha district of the city of Pucallpa. The following morning, threats directed against Indigenous leaders Berlin Diques and Jamer Lopez were found scrawled across the doors of ORAU’s offices.

These latest attacks and threats come even as Indigenous defenders in Ucayali are preparing for a hearing with the IACHR on 6 October, focused on the links between State corruption and attacks and killings of Amazonian rights defenders.

The Commission will examine the emblematic cases of four Indigenous communities: Alto Tamaya-Saweto, Santa Clara de Uchunya, Unipacuyacu and Nuevo Amanecer Hawai.

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