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Evo
Blames FTA for Peru Clashes
La Paz - Bolivian President Evo Morales has blamed
the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for recent
clashes between police and indigenous protesters in
Peru, the Cambio newspaper reported on Sunday.
According to the paper, Morales made the statement
during the closing ceremony of the 34 Eastern, Chaco
and Bolivian Amazon indigenous people Consultative
Assembly.
Now the transnational are not coming to fight us for
our own natural resources; I�m convinced that what
happened in Peru was sparked by the FTA, which
promotes privatization and handing over the Amazons
forests to transnational, highlighted Morales.
For almost two months, as many as 30,000 indigenous
people have been blocking road and river traffic,
demanding the repeal of presidential decrees issued
last year to facilitate implementation of the
US-Peru FTA.
According to the indigenous leaders, several of
these decrees directly threaten indigenous
territories and rights
During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon,
confrontations between nonviolent indigenous
protesters and police have left up to 100 people
dead. The vast majority of the casualties are
civilians, who have been conducting peaceful
demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest.
The FTA practices genocide in Latin America,
insisted Morales and added that the Peruvian laws
the indigenous people are opposing for considering
them harmful to their territories in the Amazon, are
part of the bilateral agreement signed between Lima
and Washington.
Morales instead favors a People�s Trade Treaty to
counteract the US-led FTA in Latin America. |
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