This report is the result of a fact-finding mission conducted in June of this year in Peru by Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous People’s rights and Elsie Monge, Executive Director of CEDHU, FIDH’s member organization in Ecuador, to investigate on the human rights violations and acts of violence that took place in northern Peru on June 5 and 6, 2009 and caused the death of 33 persons, one person disappeared and about 200 injured.
These acts of violence occurred when the police tried to break up a blockade that indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon region had maintained for a few weeks as an act of protest in response to legislative decrees affecting their rights over their lands and territories. The Peruvian government argues that these decrees are to facilitate the implementation of the United States - Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.