PERU: Former Minister Should Answer for Massacre in the Amazon

PERU: Former Minister Should Answer for Massacre in the Amazon
By Ángel Páez

LIMA, Aug 28 (IPS) - "Did I have a feather on my head and kill the policemen myself?" Mercedes Cabanillas responded when journalists asked her if, as interior minister of Peru, she assumed responsibility for the operation that led to the deaths of 24 members of the police and at least nine indigenous protesters near the Amazon jungle town of Bagua.

Thirteen days later, she promoted 11 police officials who took part in the Jun. 5 crackdown on a roadblock that native demonstrators had manned for a month along a key Amazon highway near Bagua, in the northern province of Amazonas.

When the press reported that the police officials had been commended for their "distinguished service" that day, the now former minister suspended the promotions until the national police force’s Office of the Inspector General – which was carrying out an internal probe into the incident - had declared whether or not the officers were implicated in the killings.

The Office of the Inspector General then issued a report indicating criminal negligence on the part of regional police chief General Javier Uribe and General Elías Muguruza, head of the special operations unit, DIROES.

The report was a bombshell.

The leader of the Nationalist Party legislators, Daniel Abugattás, announced that his party was studying whether to bring charges against Cabanillas for her participation in the incident.

Testimony contained in the report indicates that Cabanillas played a decisive role in the police operation. It was the then interior minister herself who relieved Uribe and sent Muguruza in from Lima, with orders to lift the traffic blockade.

The indigenous demonstrators were protesting a number of controversial decrees that opened up the rainforest to oil, mining, logging and agribusiness companies.

The operation, involving 600 heavily armed DINOES policemen backed up by an Mi-17 helicopter and an armoured vehicle, opened fire on the peaceful crowd of indigenous people at dawn on Jun. 5 at the spot on the highway known as the Curva del Diablo (Devil’s Curve), where the protesters were manning the roadblock.

According to sources at the national police directorate who spoke with IPS in June, the operation was carried out despite the fact that two local police chiefs had signed a non-aggression pact with the leaders of the protests.

The head of the protest, Awajún chief Salomón Aguanash, told IPS that under the agreement, General Uribe had given the demonstrators until 10:00 AM to clear out, which they were planning to do that morning at 8:00 or 9:00 AM. But the police arrived, and started shooting, at around 5:00 AM.

Meanwhile, when they heard that the police were shooting their fellow protesters, indigenous demonstrators at the nearby Petroperu oil pumping station No. 6 seized the police officers guarding the installations, stripped them of their weapons, and killed several of them in reprisal for the security forces’ failure to respect the peace agreement.

Indigenous leaders say the number of protesters killed was higher than the official death toll of nine civilians. In addition, around 100 people were injured and 80 arrested during the clash.

Protesters said they saw the police collecting the bodies of dead demonstrators, putting them in bags and throwing them in the river from a helicopter, to reduce the estimate of the number of people killed.

In a Jun. 8 appearance before Congress to explain what happened, Cabanillas said the police acted with complete autonomy and that the outcome of the operation was the responsibility of the police commanders.

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