LIMA, July 26 (IPS) – The invasion of territories inhabited by indigenous communities in the Amazon is increasing in Peru, as drug trafficking mafias expand coca plantations to produce and export cocaine, while increasing deforestation and insecurity for indigenous people and their advocates.
“Drug trafficking is not a myth or something new in this area, and we are the ones who defend our right to live in peace in our land,” said Kakataibo indigenous leader Marcelo Odicio, from the municipality of Aguaytía, capital of Padre Abad province, in the Ucayali Amazon region.
Of the South American country’s 33 million inhabitants, approximately 800,000 belong to 51 indigenous peoples of the Amazon. In total, 96.4% of the indigenous population is made up of Quechua and Aymara, six million of whom live in the Andean regions, while the jungle peoples of the Amazon make up the remaining 3.6%.
The Peruvian government is constantly criticized for not meeting the needs and demands of this population group, which suffers from a number of disadvantages in terms of health, education, income and opportunities. In addition, it is struggling with the increasing consequences of drug trafficking, illegal logging and mining.
A clear example of this is the situation of the Kakataibo people in two of their original communities, Puerto Nuevo and Sinchi Roca, on the border between the departments of Huánuco and Ucayali, in the jungle region of central-eastern Peru.
For years they have been reporting and resisting the presence of intruders who are cutting down the forests for illegal purposes, while the government pays no attention and takes no action.
The latest threat has prompted them to deploy their indigenous guard to defend themselves against new groups of outsiders, who have announced in videos their decision to occupy the territories over which the Kakataibo people have ancestral rights, backed by titles granted by the departmental authorities.
Six Kakataibo leaders who defended their land and way of life have been murdered in recent years. The latest was Mariano Isacama, whose body was found by the indigenous guard on Sunday, July 14, after he had been missing for weeks.
In his interview with IPS, Odicio, president of the Indigenous Federation of Kakataibo Communities (Fenacoka), lamented the failure of authorities to find Isacama. The leader of the indigenous community of Puerto Azul had been threatened by people linked to drug trafficking, the federation suspects.
During a press conference in Lima on July 17, Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep), which brings together 109 federations representing 2,439 indigenous communities, deplored the government’s indifference to the situation of the disappeared and murdered leader, bringing the number of indigenous people murdered in the Amazon region to 35 between 2023 and 2024.
Aidesep declared a state of emergency in the Amazon region’s indigenous peoples’ territory, calling for self-defense and protection mechanisms against what it called “impunity for violence unleashed by drug trafficking, mining and illegal logging under the protection of authorities complicit in negligence, inaction and corruption.”
Lack of vision for the Amazon
The province of Aguaytía, where the municipality of Padre de Abad is located and where the Kakataibo people live, among others, will account for 4.3% of the area devoted to coca leaf cultivation by 2023, approximately 4,019 hectares, according to the final report by the government National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs (Devida).
It is the sixth largest production area of this crop in the country.
The report found that Peru reduced illicit coca cultivation by just over 2% between 2022 and 2023, from 95,008 to 92,784 hectares, reversing a trend of permanent expansion over the past seven years.
These figures are questioned by Ricardo Soberón, an expert on drug policy, security and the Amazon region.
“The latest World Drug Report indicates that we have gone from 22 to 23 million cocaine users, and that the golden triangle in Burma, the triple border of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and the Amazon are privileged areas for production and export,” Soberón told IPS.
The latter has “Putumayo and Yaguas, areas that according to Devida have reduced the 2,000 hectares under cultivation. I don’t believe it,” he said.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which commissioned the report, lists Peru as the second largest cocaine producer in the world.
Soberón added another element that discredits the conclusions of the Devida report: the government’s behavior.
“There is no air interdiction in the Amazon region, the non-lethal interdiction agreement with the United States will be operational in 2025. On the other hand, there are complaints against the anti-drug police in Loreto, the department where Putumayo and Yaguas are located, because of their links with the Brazilian mafia,” he explained.
He believes there has been an attempt to whitewash “a government that is completely isolated,” referring to the government led by interim President Dina Boluarte since December 2022, with minimal approval and questioned over a series of democratic setbacks.
Soberón, director of Devida in 2011-2012 and 2021-2022, has consistently warned that the government at different levels has not incorporated the indigenous agenda into its policies against illegality in their ancestral territories.
This, he said, despite growing pressure on their peoples and lands from “the world’s largest illegal extractive economies: drug trafficking, logging and gold mining,” the main drivers of deforestation, biodiversity loss and territorial dispossession.
Soberón argued that, given the scale of the cocaine trade in the world, large trafficking groups need coca crop reserves, and that Peruvian territory is suitable for this. He deplored the lack of strategic vision among political, economic, commercial and social players in the Amazon.
Based on previous research, he says the Cauca-Nariño Bridge in southern Colombia, Putumayo in Peru and parts of Brazil form the Amazon Trapezoid: a fluid transit area not just for cocaine but also for weapons, supplies and gold.
Hence the great flow of cocaine into the region, for smuggling and distribution to the United States and other markets. This makes the jungle-like indigenous areas of the Peruvian Amazon attractive for coca cultivation and cocaine laboratories.
Soberón stresses that it is possible to reconcile anti-drug policies with the protection of the Amazon region, for example by promoting the social-citizen pacts that he himself developed as a pilot project during his term in office.
It is a matter, he said, of transforming social actors, such as indigenous peoples, into decision-makers. But that requires a clear political will, which is not evident in the current Devida government.
“We will not stand idly by”
Odicio, the president of Fenacoka, knows that the increased presence of invaders in their territories is aimed at planting pasture and coca leaves, an activity that destroys their forests. They have even installed maceration ponds near the communities.
When invaders arrive, they cut down the trees, burn them, raise cattle, take possession of the land and then claim title, he explained. “After the anti-forestry law, they feel strong and say they have a right to the land, when they don’t,” he said.
He refers to the reform of the Forestry and Wildlife Act No. 29763, which has been in force since December 2023 and which goes further weakens the security of indigenous peoples over their land rights and opens the door to legal and illegal extractive activities.
The leader, who has a wife and two young children, knows that the role of defender exposes him. “We are the ones who pay the consequences, we are visible to criminals, we are branded as informants, but I will continue to defend our rights. Together with the indigenous guard, we will ensure that the autonomy of our territory is respected,” he stressed.
In the indigenous community of Puerto Nuevo, there are 200 Kakataibo families, with another 500 in Sinchi Roca. They make their living from the sustainable use of their forest resources, which are at risk from illegal activities. “We just want to live in peace, but we will defend ourselves because we cannot stand idly by if they do not respect our autonomy,” he said.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
