Death toll rises in Peruvian Amazon clashes
YURIMAGUAS, Peru (Reuters) - The death toll rose on Saturday after Peruvian security forces battled native Indians in clashes that highlighted opposition to exploration in the Amazon and could threaten Peru's investor-friendly government.
Up to 42 people have been killed in the escalating protests over mining and oil development in the region, which have interrupted food and fuel supplies and represent the worst violence of President Alan Garcia's current government.
Thousands of Indians with wooden spears continued to block remote Amazon highways, vowing to keep protesting if police did not halt efforts to break up their demonstrations.
Nine police officers held hostage by the protesters were killed and another 22 were freed by troops in a rescue operation, National Police Chief Miguel Hidalgo told Peru's RPP radio broadcaster. He said seven other hostages were missing.
An additional 30 people, including protesters and police, died on Friday when police broke up a roadblock, about 870 miles (1,400 km) north of Lima, the capital.
Garcia blamed his leftist political opponents for the violence and defended the use of force.
"Shame on those politicians who can't win elections so they get together irrational groups to do what they did yesterday," Garcia said on Saturday according to the state news agency.
Tribes, worried they will lose control over natural resources, have protested since April seeking to force Congress to repeal new laws that encourage foreign mining and energy companies to invest billions of dollars in the rain forest.
"We are not going to give up until they reverse these laws that will damage us. They want to take away our lands and forest and make our traditions disappear," said Luis Huansi, a leader of the Shawi tribe from the Loreto region, at a highway blockade between the Amazon towns of Tarapoto and Yurimaguas.
Men, women and children from the subsistence farming region were blocking the highway, some dressed in long red tunics, wearing headbands and carrying wooden spears. Families have set up tents of plastic sheeting along the roadside.
Defence Minister Antero Flores said security forces had regained control of an oil pumping station of state-owned Petroperu, which protesters had threatened to set ablaze.
SOME DEAD FROM SPEAR WOUNDS
Violence broke out on Friday as police tried to disperse a roadblock on another highway at a place called "Devil's Curve" in the Bagua region of Amazonas province.
Indigenous leaders said at least 22 protesters were killed. The government reported the deaths of three protesters and 11 police officers, some from spear wounds. At least 100 people were injured.
The bloodshed, which prompted calls for Garcia's prime minister and interior minister to quit, has underscored deep divisions between wealthy elites in Lima and poor indigenous groups in rural areas.
It also has exposed the central government's lack of control over remote regions.
Garcia, whose approval rating is 30 percent, is especially unpopular in the Amazon, where development has lagged.
Critics say he has not done enough to lower the poverty rate from 36 percent and that economic boom times before the current downturn failed to reach the poor.
They also say his policies favouring free markets and foreign investment mainly benefit urban elites.
Indigenous groups are upset over laws passed last year as Garcia moved to bring Peru's regulatory framework into compliance with a free-trade agreement with the United States.
After the violence on Friday, members of Garcia's Cabinet accused protesters of being inflexible and refusing to negotiate and said they would impose curfews.
Indigenous leaders were outraged and said Garcia's allies acted in bad faith when they blocked a motion in Congress on Thursday to open debate on a law that tribes want overturned.
"We don't have guns, we have only these spears," said Huansi, shaking his spear.
(Writing by Terry Wade and Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Paul Simao)