Two Amazonian indigenous leaders, whose territories and their own lives are threatened by drug traffickers and illegal loggers, ask the Peruvian government for weapons to defend their ancestral habitat.
The demand was presented to the foreign press by Yanet Velasco, leader of the Central de Comunidades de la etnia Asháninka del Río Ene (CARE) and Herlín Odicio Estrella, president of the Federación Nativa de Comunidades de la etnia Kakataibo, both located in the central Peruvian Amazon.
Yanet Velasco pointed out that drug traffickers and tree predators invaded areas of the territories of the 19 Asháninka communities that make up her organization, an invasion that included, she said, the murder of 20 Amazon defenders from various organizations since 2020.
Advertisement
20240410_mh_renta_728x90
20240426_bcr_censo_728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230816_dgs_728x90
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
CEL
CEL
SSF
SSF
SSF
It was recently announced the arrest of a suspected hitman who shot dead in April 2023 the leader Santiago Contoricó, of the Central Asháninka del Río Tambo (CART), in the region of Ucayali, bordering Brazil.
This organization repeatedly denounced that Contoricó’s life was in danger because he was receiving constant death threats from drug traffickers, without the authorities providing him with protection.
“We do not trust the police, many of them are in collusion with drug traffickers, nor do we trust the officials of the regions of Junín and Huánuco, nor the prosecutors; there is no one to turn to,” said Kakataibo leader Odicio Estrella.
Faced with this situation, the natives decided to defend themselves by organizing themselves into indigenous guards against drug traffickers and other invaders of their ancestral territories.
To do so, they only have bows, arrows and some old shotguns, so for years they have been asking the Armed Forces to provide them with more modern weaponry, but they have not received any response.
Advertisement
20240410_mh_renta_728x90
20240426_bcr_censo_728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230816_dgs_728x90
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
CEL
CEL
SSF
SSF
SSF
The leaders even went to the United Nations to denounce the depredation and appropriation of part of their lands and also raised the problem with Peruvian parliamentarians, without finding a solution.
They pointed out that drug and timber traffickers act in concert for the common interest of keeping native lands occupied or gaining them for their illicit activities.
As they need people to work for them and have economic power, the intruders promote the access of settlers from other regions and create fictitious population centers to legalize their presence in the habitat of the Amazonian nations.
Yanet Velasco highlights the fact that among these settlers there are criminals wanted by the police who join drug traffickers to grow coca leaf and produce cocaine, or carry out other activities such as contract killings.
They also use threats to pressure native inhabitants to also grow coca leaf, promote consumerism, and try to persuade young indigenous people to do the same in order to earn money.
Advertisement
20240410_mh_renta_728x90
20240426_bcr_censo_728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230816_dgs_728x90
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
CEL
CEL
SSF
SSF
SSF
The Asháninka leader pointed out that her people are interested in preserving the environment in the territory, maintaining their way of life and subsisting on fishing, hunting and the cultivation of food products, to which they add potentially exportable cacao, coffee and sesame plantations.
But to do so, they need to preserve their communally owned lands, where drug traffickers establish clandestine airstrips to transport drugs to neighboring countries such as Brazil, the platform for shipments to Europe.
Their fight also faces erroneous policies, such as the maintained and already ceased policy of programs financed by the European Union and United States cooperation, which financed alternative crops to coca grown by colonists and promoted the granting of land titles to them on lands that are part of indigenous territories.
In addition, municipal governments build roads in the middle of the jungle, with the obvious purpose of facilitating access to drug traffickers and illegal loggers.
The new truce plan in Gaza includes “many demands” from Hamas, according to an Egyptian source
The talks held between delegations from Egypt and Israel in Tel Aviv for a truce in Gaza were “largely positive and successful” and included “many of the demands” of the Islamist movement Hamas, an Egyptian security source familiar with the negotiations and another from Hamas reported to EFE on Sunday.
A delegation from Hamas, headed by the member of the political bureau Khalil al-The Hague, is expected to arrive tomorrow in Cairo, mediator in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group, to deliver its response to the mediators, according to the Egyptian source, which asked not to be identified by the sensitivity of this issue.
This new proposal, on whose content it did not provide details, “overcomes the obstacles that hinder” the declaration of a truce, a ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners and hostages, as well as the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip.
The possible announcement of a truce “will contribute to the approval of a first phase and to the efforts of the entire international community to consolidate this ceasefire and seek to move to a permanent truce instead of a temporary one,” according to the informant.
On the other hand, a source of the Palestinian Islamist movement, which also asked for anonymity, confirmed to EFE that tomorrow a delegation from Hamas will arrive in the Egyptian capital to present its response to the new Israeli proposal.
The informant added that the proposal includes “reducing the minimum number of kidnapped that Hamas will commit to freeing and eliminating divisions in sections of the Gaza Strip.”
Last Friday, an Egyptian mediating delegation traveled to Tel Aviv to discuss this truce with Israel, while the Jewish State has warned that it will not allow the Palestinian group to delay and has once again threatened to invade Rafah, at the southern end of the strip and where more than a million refugees are overcrowded.
Hamas warns the United Kingdom that if it sends soldiers to Gaza they will be a “legitimate” military target
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas warned the United Kingdom on Sunday that if it deploys military personnel in the Gaza Strip, after information that they could help in the distribution of humanitarian aid, they will be “legitimate targets” of its armed wing.
“We alert Britain, or any other country, against the deployment of forces on land or on the coast of the Gaza Strip and affirm that they will be legitimate targets for our people and their resistance,” Hamas said in a statement.
The armed group charged against any initiative in the Palestinian enclave that does not have its approval.
The Islamist group responded to the information released on Saturday by the British network BBC, according to which the British Armed Forces could deploy troops to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground arriving in Gaza through the new floating dock that is being built by Israel and the United States.
The public broadcaster indicated that the United Kingdom could be the intermediary to which the United States referred when it said that it would not be the American soldiers, but others, who would distribute the food packages sent by ship from Cyprus and then transferred to Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israeli Army assured at a press conference with international media that international organizations would be in charge of the distribution of humanitarian aid, but did not indicate which ones would have agreed to collaborate.
Although the British Government has not confirmed the news, the BBC affirms, according to anonymous sources, that the Ministry of Defense is considering getting involved with ‘wet boots’ on the ground.
The possible role of the British forces would involve driving the trucks with the help from the landing boats on the floating runway, hundreds of meters long, and delivering it to a safe distribution area on dry land, the station explained.
The London Ministry of Defense reported on Friday, in turn, that the British Navy auxiliary ship RFA Cardigan Bay set sail from Cyprus to provide support for the construction of the temporary dock, which is led by the United States.
This ship will provide accommodation for hundreds of American sailors and soldiers, about whom Washington has made it clear that they will not set foot in Gaza territory.
Nancy Pelosi says that Netanyahu “could not have made things worse” in Gaza
Former President of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, “could not have made things worse” in the conflict in Gaza, in an interview broadcast this Sunday by the BBC.
Pelosi, who on Thursday participated in an event at the English university of Oxford, told the ‘Laura Kuenssberg Program’ that Netanyahu “was never a peace agent” and admitted that she “is not a great fan of his.”
The congresswoman said that what is happening in the Strip “challenges the conscience of the world” and maintained that the impact of famine on children “is almost unforgivable”, while calling the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7 “barbaric”.
“Israel has the right to defend itself, but the way it is doing it is a challenge because Netanyahu has never been a peace agent,” he said.
“I’m not a great admirer of yours; I couldn’t have done things worse than those tens of thousands, or whatever number it is, of dead people, malnourished children and the uncertainty that exists… and that’s what people are talking about,” he said.
Asked if she understood why young people in the United States used controversial tactics when protesting against the conflict, Pelosi opined that “when they go beyond the campuses and block the Golden Gate Bridge, or something else, for a long time, and people can’t go to the doctor or the hospital or anything urgent in their lives, they don’t get support.”
But he added: “How can demonstrations on (university) campuses be criticized? That’s a way of life in the United States.”
On Thursday, the British police evicted two pro-Palestinian protesters who protested during their speech on populism to students from the University of Oxford, while abroad another group criticized her for her defense of Israel and her position on the movement to support Palestine.
