Unfortunately, the Peruvian government has chosen the wrong way to confront an international leftist conspiracy.  On Friday, June 5th, 24 police officers and a still unknown number of jungle indigenous people were killed after trying to unblock the Fernando Belaunde Terry road in the sector known as Devil’s Curve.

The blocking of roads and rivers is a common protest method with considerable success in Ecuador and it is prominently experienced in Bolivia.  Some years ago, indigenous activist Evo Morales was able to blackmail several presidents using this method of blocking roads. The Bolivian people then gave Morales the opportunity to rule the country as president. 

Sadly, we know now that Morales has divided his nation socially, politically and regionally.  He has transformed Bolivia into a satellite of 21st Century Socialism governed by a dictator in Venezuela and the Castro brothers in Cuba, all of who enjoy a higher standard of living than millionaires in industrialized nations.  Evo Morales’s insults hurled against President Garcia days before the massacre were not a coincidence.  Neither was Morales’s recent declaration that what occurred at Devil’s Curve was the “genocide of the U.S.-Peru free trade agreement,” nor his written message read to participants of the IV Continental Indigenous Summit in the south Peruvian region of Puno.  In the greeting, Morales asked indigenous people to go “from resistance to rebellion and from rebellion to revolution.” 

It happens that this international conspiracy gets stronger with the mistakes of the Peruvian government and the weakness of its democracy.  This conspiracy is based on the demands of the poorest citizens, though the transformation these demands later undergo is rather interesting.

The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (ADIESEP) is the name of the Peruvian NGO chaired by Alberto Pizango.  The organization received more than USD $4 million dollars over the last few years and participated in the World Social forum held in Caracas in 2006.  The forum was funded by the Bolivarian dictator Chavez and it is where leftist NGOs discuss strategies to dismantle market-based democracies.  In the Bagua attack, Amazon Watch and Survival International – two leftist NGOs with many activities in the Peruvian jungle – conveyed disinformation to the world about the number of victims in the bloody confrontation. There is no confirmation of the indigenous victims and the NGOs have not been able to prove the information they are publishing shamelessly.  Of course the possibility that most of the deaths were police officers is something they did not expect.

The Peruvian government – in amateurish fashion – unwittingly aided this leftist conspiracy overthrow Alan Garcia.   As a first reaction to the problem, the government undertook a radio and TV media blitz to claim that the police officers were victims of terrorism and show images of cadavers.  The dead indigenous were not shown in that spot.  Then Garcia declared that the indigenous population “are not first-class citizens and 400,000 Peruvians cannot tell 28 million Peruvians that you have no right to be here.”  Who, then, are first-class Peruvian citizens?  It is the 400,000 jungle indigenous against the rest of the Peruvians?  Even if Alan Garcia did not mean what he said these facts contributed to the strategy of the international left, which exposes social tensions that are the legacy of Spaniard colonialism.

This strategy says divide Peruvians between aymaras, quechuas or forest-born indigenous people and coastal natives, between poor and rich, citizens and government, Lima and provinces.  That is the first condition, to polarize the country and it is what the conspiracy is about.  If the battle reaches this point Peru will have secured defeat and democracy and liberty will disappear.

There have been many mistakes Peru should not repeat:

•The government did not have a proper and timely consultation with the jungle population about the decrees – the reason for the protests – even when, according to a UN declaration, Peru once voted that any decision about jungle lands should be consulted with the local inhabitants.

•When the government decided to negotiate they failed to choose the right indigenous representative. Mr. Pizango, leader of ADIESEP, was not truly representative of the Indian tribes.  They have their own leaders known as APUS chosen in a democratic way by each tribe.  They should have been the ones with whom to discuss the decrees.

•There is a severe absence of the state in the jungle.  Most tribes lack adequate schools and health clinics.  If the government arrives at these areas only as armed soldiers, then resentment against the government among the indigenous increases.

•Democratic representation is not working in Peru.  A huge responsibility falls on congress, which was not helpful at all.  Many Peruvians feel the congressmen and local authorities did not assume a role in this problem and they are not viewed as offering a listening ear for citizens’ complaints and needs.

•This is probably the most important mistake and it is where ADIESEP is right:  The Peruvian government is too slow to settle Indian land claims and grant titles, and it is quick to grant concessions to oil companies and loggers.  In Peru, land belongs to people only when it does not have any underground resources.  This is property right erosion written right into the Constitution. It is the right time to change it.