Two indigenous leaders of the Cacataibo ethnic group, Herasmo García Grau and Ynes Ríos Bonsano, have been assassinated this week in Peru, according to what the apu (chief) Berlin Diques denounced this Saturday.
This is the latest in a series of murders of indigenous and mestizo leaders from the Amazonian regions of Ucayali and Huánuco who, in recent years, have denounced invaders who grow coca for drug trafficking and land traffickers.
Diques himself was one of the eight leaders who alerted the Interior and Justice Ministers and the Public Prosecutor's Office in December that six leaders were threatened with death, but received no response.
At that meeting, representatives of the Cacataibo, Ashaninka and Shipibo ethnic groups also reported that eight indigenous communities were at greater risk: one of them was Sinchi Roca, in Ucayali, of which García Grau, one of those killed this week, was a leader.
"The State is indolent before so many things that we are going through.
As long as we abide by the government's measures for the pandemic, these illegals continue to advance their ambitions in the territories of titled communities and others that are not titled due to problems in the Ministry of Agriculture [which issues the land titles].
They are more likely to continue under threat, "lamented the leader.
According to a statement from the Aidesep Ucayali Regional Organization (ORAU), which presides over Diques, García Grau, 28, was kidnapped in Sinchi Roca on Thursday.
A day later his body appeared.
According to the leader, on the day of his abduction, the indigenous leader was touring the areas "to see if the invaders were still in those communal areas."
“The authorities care little or nothing.
Nobody paid attention to our complaints ”, laments the leader of ORAU.
The community where the kidnapping took place has requested that their communal titles be updated, but, according to a complaint, “the Regional Directorate of Agriculture of Ucayali has systematically refused to conclude this process, and this contributes to the interests of the invaders, traffickers and other criminals who use this area as a transit route for their illegal businesses ”.
For his part, Yenes Ríos Bonsano was murdered four days before García Grau, according to preliminary information available to Diques, but his body cannot be recovered until Monday.
Ríos Bonsano was a member of the native community of Puerto Nuevo, in the province of Coronel Portillo, about five hours from Pucallpa, capital of the Ucayali region.
The president of ORAU demands that the authorities protect laws that "truly protect collective and territorial rights" to stop the advance of drug trafficking.
In addition, he requested a multisectoral meeting with authorities from various ministries to resolve the lack of georeferencing and the existence of drug landing strips.
"Everyone knows and knows, especially the police, but there are no actions, there is a lot of corruption," he adds.
According to the Amazonian leader, the forestry authority estimates that 42,000 hectares have been deforested on the lands of indigenous communities, mainly due to drug trafficking.
Ricardo Pérez, a member of the Amazon Watch team in Peru, indicates that some of the
threatened Amazonian
apus
have requested guarantees, but the police only give them protection in the cities.
"In the communities they are facing drug traffickers who want to plant coca, every day they are facing danger," he says.
Impunity installed
In October, at a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on corruption and violation of the rights of indigenous defenders, a Peruvian NGO presented four complaints in this regard, including one in the Cacataibo community.
"In it it was frequently raised that drug trafficking, logging, illegal mining and impunity in the face of these illegalities have as a consequence the assassination of the leaders," says Magaly Ávila, a sociologist with the NGO Proética.
"In December, due to the unstoppable advance of drug trafficking in Huánuco and Ucayali, we accompanied the indigenous leaders to meet with the ministries and the environmental attorney, and in the different spaces it was indicated that they were going to take action on the matter," adds the lawyer.
“In practice, the State has done little or nothing, despite the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission,” Avila maintains.
No one has been sanctioned for the crimes of environmental and indigenous defenders in Ucayali.
In 2014, Edwin Chota and three other authorities from his community were killed by an illegal logging mafia that Chota denounced before the Prosecutor's Office, with photographs that he himself took.
In April of last year, during the pandemic, the mafias murdered Arbildo Meléndez, the Cacataibo chief of the Unipacuyacu indigenous community (on the border between Ucayali and the Huánuco region).
Zulema Guevara, Meléndez's wife, then told the press that the leader began to receive threats when he decided to resume the titling of the community that the bureaucracy froze in 1995. The wife and children of the former Unipacuyacu authority had to move. to Pucallpa, the capital of Ucayali, to protect their lives.
Two weeks later, Ashaninka community member Benjamín Ríos was killed in Kipachari, district of Tahuanía.
An ORAU statement then reported that the victim had received death threats and harassment from people linked to drug trafficking and invasions.
As a result of the García y Ríos murders, Amazonian indigenous organizations fear for the life of the apu Herlin Odicio, president of the Native Federation of Cacataibo Communities (Fenacoca), who has also received threats again.
Since 2011, 220 defenders have been murdered and 960 criminalized in Peru according to the report 'Undermining Rights', presented on Thursday by the Observatory of the World Organization against Torture and the FIDH, and the National Coordinator of Human Rights.