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10 April 2012 | Interviews | Human rights
First Tensions
Peruvian organizations question law promoted by Humala
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The relationship between Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s administration and the most representative social organizations of the country is beginning to break apart. An example is the proposal to regulate the Law on the Right to Previous Consultation for Indigenous or Native Peoples, passed by the Executive on April 3rd.
A few hours after the regulation was made official, a statement by Pacto de Unidad regretted the fact that the governmental project didn’t take into account the "valuable contributions" of over three thousand leaders of indigenous peoples who participated in the macro-regional workshops.
“We strongly reject the regulation of the Consultation Law, a unilateral document which was drafted by the Intercultural Vice-Minister, validated by unequal multisectoral commissions with the presence of leaders of only two organizations, CONAP (the Confederation of Amazon Nationalisties of Peru) and the CCP (the Peasant Confederation of Peru), who do not represent the over 10 million indigenous people of Peru”, reads the statement.
Pacto de Unidad is a network made up by the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Forest (AIDESEP), the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI), the Agrarian National Confederation (CNA) and the National Organization of Indigenous and Amazon Women of Peru.
Some of these groups have been demanding for the past months a series of modifications to the regulation. Now, they assess this process in a negative way and warn about further complications in the relationship between Humala and social movements.
“Aidesep regrets that Ollanta’s government is an imitation of (Alan) Garcia’s administration”, stated the organization in an article published in their website.
In addition, the Board of Directors of Aidesep decided to start gathering signatures to declare the Previous Consultation Law unconstitutional. This group wants the Peruvian government to "accept this mistake" and warns that in case this does not happen, “more social protests could take place in the future”.
Meanwhile, CONACAMI criticized the lies by the Multisectoral Commission in charge of implementing this Consultation Law and state that the 229 social conflicts reported by the Ombudsman in March, 2012, are “a clear sign of the failure” of the dialogue between the government and the indigenous peoples.
Photo: Conacami
