Urgent Prayers for Peru

[peggy at gulfcoastsynod.org]

Dear Friends,

* *

*Please pause a minute and read the notes below*. I want to invite you to
join me in prayer for people living in the Amazon Rainforests of Peru. This
is critical time as over 100 people have died due to a dispute between the
government and the indigenous leaders. The notes below from Pastor David
Wunsch and Pastor Dana Nelson.

In addition, Bishop Mike and Jim Young (Peru Team Facilitator) will soon
travel to Lima to join ILEP as they celebrate the 10th anniversary of the
ordination of pastors in one of our Companion Synods.

Your prayers and care are important right now as so many are in pain due to
this conflict. Please pray for peace for Peru.

Also, a gentle reminder. We are collecting money to support the salaries of
the pastors in Peru. Without our partnership these pastors who serve
part-time and work another job as they serve in Peru, will not receive
funds. We are working with ILEP on a long term solution to this problem but
for the next few years, we feel that we can nurture this young Lutheran
synod through our financial support as well as our prayers and personal
trips that many of you have made or plan to make.

Peace to you as you continue to care for our whole church.

Peggy Hahn, Assistant to the Bishop

* *

* *

*NOTE FROM DANA NELSON, ELCA MISSIONARY IN PERU:*

I wasn´t going to write again to all of you because I am coming soon to the
states to visit your congregations in person...

But please if you can, from wherever you are, pray with us tonight for an
end to the violence in the Amazon rainforest of Peru where the native people
and national government officials are killing each other over land rights.
The area where the native people have been living for generations has oil
and gold in it. Please pray with us. The Church of Sweden is joining us in
prayer (from Sweden) together with our Peruvian Lutheran Church (ILEP) and
churches of all denominations around Peru.

Peace,
Pastora Dana in Lima

* *

*NOTE FROM DAVID WUNSCH, COORDINATOR FOR SOUTH AMERICAN MISSION, ELCA:*

Greetings All - I am pasting in a NY Time´s article from today. As was
noted in the ABC News link Jim circulated as well as in this piece, there is
a connection here with the Free Trade Agreement that Perú signed with the
United States. This agreement has the Peruvian government changing laws to
open up business possibilities in ways that conflict with the rights of
Peru´s indigenous peoples (and related international treaty obligations
like the UN Declaration of Human rights and other instruments dealing
specifically with indigenous peoples).  Also, the people of Peru´s
Amazonia, have the worst economic, health, and education indicators in the
country.

I am also pasting in a link to the ELCA´s Social Statement on Caring for
Creation.

http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Journal-of-Lutheran-Ethics
/Portfolios/Social-Statements-of-the-Evangelical-Lutheran-Church-in-America/
Caring-for-Creation-Vision-Hope-and-Justice-A-Social-Statement-on.aspx

As Lutheran Christians, it is impossible to de- link concern for the
environment from the struggles of indigenous peoples for autonomy, economic
justice and control over natural resources. One key aspect of the protest in
Peru´s Amazonia relates to opportunity of indigenous peoples to participate
in decisions about extraction of natural resources in territories they
inhabit. In helping us reflect on our role as church when faced with these
situations, I invite you to take a look particularly at the part of Caring
for Creation on "A. Justice through Participation" under "IV. The Call to
Justice." These paragraphs also point to a role for the church in these kind
of situations. See also "B. Justice through Solidarity."

The earth is the Lord´s and all that is in it, the world, and those who
live in it. Psalm 24:1 (NRSV)

Shalom,

David

*Protesters Gird for Long Fight Over Opening Peru’s Amazon *

Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Published: June 11, 2009

IQUITOS, Peru - Faced with a simmering crisis over dozens of deaths in the
quelling of indigenous protests last week, Peru’s Congress this week
suspended the decrees that had set off the protests over plans to open large
parts of the Peruvian Amazon to investment. Senior officials said they hoped
this would calm nerves and ease the way for oil drillers and loggers to
pursue their projects.

But instead, indigenous groups are digging in for a protracted fight,
revealing an increasingly well-organized movement that could be a tinderbox
for President Alan García. The movement appears to be fueled by a deep
popular resistance to the government’s policies, which focused on luring
foreign investment, while parts of the Peruvian Amazon have been left
behind.

The broadening influence of the indigenous movement was on display Thursday
in a general strike that drew thousands of protesters here to the streets of
Iquitos, the largest Peruvian city in the Amazon, and to cities and towns
elsewhere in jungle areas. Protests over Mr. García’s handling of the
violence in the northern Bagua Province last Friday also took place in
highland regions like Puno, near the Bolivian border, and in Lima and
Arequipa on the Pacific coast.

“The government made the situation worse with its condescending depiction
of us as gangs of savages in the forest,” said Wagner Musoline Acho, 24,
an Awajún Indian and an indigenous leader. “They think we can be tricked
by a maneuver like suspending a couple of decrees for a few weeks and then
reintroducing them, and they are wrong.”

The protesters’ immediate threat - to cut the supply of oil and natural
gas to Lima, the capital - seems to have subsided, with protesters partly
withdrawing from their occupation of oil installations in the jungle. But as
anger festers, indigenous leaders here said they could easily try to shut
down energy installations again to exert pressure on Mr. García.

Another wave of protests appears likely because indigenous groups are
demanding that the decrees be repealed and not just suspended. The decrees
would open large jungle areas to investment and allow companies to bypass
indigenous groups to obtain permits for petroleum exploration, logging and
building hydroelectric dams. A stopgap attempt to halt earlier indigenous
protests in the Amazon last August failed to prevent them from being
reinitiated more forcefully in April.

The authorities said that nine civilians were killed in the clashes that
took place last Friday on a remote highway in Bagua. But witnesses and
relatives of missing protesters contend that the authorities are covering up
details of the episode, and that more Indians died. Twenty-four police
officers were killed on the highway and at an oil installation.

Indigenous representatives say at least 25 civilians, and perhaps more, may
have been killed, and some witnesses say that security forces dumped the
bodies of protesters into a nearby river. At least three Indians who were
wounded said they had been shot by police officers as they waited to talk
with the authorities.

“The government is trying to clean the blood off its hands by hiding the
truth,” said Andrés Huaynacari Etsam, 21, an Awajún student here who
said that five of his relatives had been killed on June 5 and that three
were missing.

Senior government officials repudiate such claims. “There is a game of
political interests taking place in which some are trying to exaggerate the
losses of life for their own gain,” said Foreign Minister José García
Belaunde.

He said the ultimate aim of the protesters was to prevent Peru from carrying
out a trade agreement with the United States, because one of the most
contentious of the decrees that were suspended on Thursday would bring
Peru’s rules for investment in jungle areas into line with the trade
agreement.

“But,” Mr. García Belaunde insisted, “the agreement is not in
danger.”

Still, the government’s initial response to the violence seems to have
heightened resentment. A television commercial by the Interior Ministry
contained graphic images of the bodies of some police officers who were
killed while being held hostage by protesters. The commercial said that the
killings were proof of the “ferocity and savagery” of indigenous
activists, but an uproar over that depiction forced the government to try to
withdraw the commercial.

The authorities are struggling to understand a movement that is
crystallizing in the Peruvian Amazon among more than 50 indigenous groups.
They include about 300,000 people, accounting for only about 1 percent of
Peru’s population, but they live in strategically important and
resource-rich locations, which are scattered throughout jungle areas that
account for nearly two-thirds of Peru’s territory.

So far, alliances have proved elusive between Indians in the Amazon and
indigenous groups in highland areas, ruling out, for now, the kind of broad
indigenous protest movements that helped oust governments in neighboring
Ecuador and Bolivia earlier in the decade.

In contrast to some earlier efforts to organize indigenous groups, the
leaders of this new movement are themselves indigenous, and not white or
mestizo urban intellectuals. They are well organized and use a web of radio
stations to exchange information across the jungle. After one prominent
leader, Alberto Pizango, was granted asylum in Nicaragua this week, others
quickly emerged to articulate demands.

“There has been nothing comparable in all my years here in terms of the
growth of political consciousness among indigenous groups,” said the Rev.
Joaquín García, 70, a priest from Spain who arrived in Iquitos 41 years
ago and directs the Center of Theological Studies of the Amazon, which
focuses on indigenous issues.

“At issue now,” he said, “is what they decide to do with the newfound
bargaining power in their hands.”

Andrea Zarate contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.

David Wunsch

Regional Representative - South America

ELCA Global Mission

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America

david.wunsch at elca.org

www.elca.org/globalmission

Living in God's Amazing Grace!

¡Vivamos en la sorprendente gracia de Dios!
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