Deadly measles epidemic hits isolated Yanomami tribe

Deadly measles epidemic hits isolated Yanomami tribe

Featured image: The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated indigenous people in the Amazon. © Fiona Watson/Survival

     by Survival International

A measles epidemic has hit an isolated Amazon tribe on the Brazil-Venezuela border which has very little immunity to the disease.

The devastating outbreak has the potential to kill hundreds of tribespeople unless emergency action is taken.

Pictures of Yanomami affected by the current measles outbreak. © Wataniba

The Yanomami communities where the outbreak has occurred are some of the most isolated in the Amazon.

The Yanomami have previously been ravaged by outbreaks of deadly diseases following invasions of their territory by gold miners.

The Yanomami have previously been ravaged by outbreaks of deadly diseases following invasions of their territory by gold miners. © Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

But thousands of gold miners have invaded the region, and they are a likely source of the epidemic. Despite repeated warnings, the authorities have taken little effective action to remove them.

In Brazil, at least 23 Indians have visited a hospital, but most of those affected are far from medical care.

Previous disease outbreaks killed 20% of the Yanomami in Brazil.

Previous disease outbreaks killed 20% of the Yanomami in Brazil. © Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

Survival International is calling for authorities in Venezuela to provide immediate medical assistance to these remote communities.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “When tribal people experience common diseases like measles or flu which they’ve never known before many of them die, and whole populations can be wiped out. These tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Urgent medical care is the only thing standing between these communities and utter devastation.”

The Venezuelan NGO Wataniba has released further details on the outbreak (in Spanish).

Water Protector Suspends Himself from 25-Foot Structure in St. Paul to Demonstrate Resistance to the Line 3 Pipeline

Water Protector Suspends Himself from 25-Foot Structure in St. Paul to Demonstrate Resistance to the Line 3 Pipeline

For Immediate Release

June 28, 2018

Activist risks arrest in front of Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Office during its final hearings to permit the Line 3 tar sands pipeline

Contact: Ethan Nuss, (218) 380-9047,  stopline3mpls@gmail.com

ST PAUL, MN – A water protector ascended a 25-foot steel tripod structure erected in the street in front of the Public Utility Commission (PUC) office to demonstrate ongoing resistance against Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline. Today marks one of the final public hearings held by the PUC on its decision to grant a certificate of need to the controversial pipeline.

All five of the directly affected Objibwe Tribal Nations in Minnesota oppose the dangerous project because of the threat it poses to their fresh water, culturally significant wild rice lakes, and tribal sovereignty. Line 3 will accelerate climate change by bringing carbon-intensive tar sands bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest. Climate change disproportionately impacts Indigenous and frontline communities across the world. This deadly infrastructure project is another example of the genocidal legacy of colonialism faced by Native peoples and the ecological destruction caused by corporate greed. Water protectors, climate justice advocates, landowners, and faith leaders stand united alongside Native communities against this dangerous pipeline.

At around 7AM CST water protectors blockaded traffic by erecting 25-foot steel poles in a tripod structure on 7th Pl. in front of the PUC offices in downtown Saint Paul, MN. Ben, a 30-year-old Minneapolis resident, ascended the structure and unfurled a banner that reads, “Expect Resistance,” a clear message to Enbridge and the PUC that fierce opposition to this pipeline will continue to grow at every stage.

“If the PUC doesn’t stop Line 3, then we will,” said Ben, suspended from the 25-foot structure in the street in front the PUC. “Today’s action isn’t about me but is a demonstration of the growing resistance to Line 3. ” Ben continued, “We’re taking action in solidarity with Native people, who continue to fight for their existence on occupied land and with people all over the world who resist the desecration of nature by extractive industries.”

For photos and live updates go to: twitter.com/ResistLine3

(Update: the tripod was occupied for three years before being vacated)

Seven Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala Killed in the Last Month

Seven Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala Killed in the Last Month

Featured image:  CODECA members march to Guatemala City from their communities to march on June 12, 2018. By @GtCodeca on Twitter. 

     by Cultural Survival

In the past week three human rights defenders from the Campesino Development Committee have been killed, totaling seven fatal attacks on human rights defenders in Guatemala over the past four weeks.

CODECA (by its Spanish acronym) is an Indigenous-led grassroots human rights organization that fights for Indigenous and campesino rights in Guatemala. Its main goals include improving working and living conditions of the rural poor, fighting against exploitative energy companies and engaging in political advocacy.

On June 8, 2018, Francisco Munguia was found hacked to death by machete in the Jalapa region in eastern Guatemala. Munguia, a member of the marginalized Indigenous Xinca nation in Guatemala, was the community vice president of CODECA in the village of Divisadero Xalapan Jalapa.

This comes four days after Florencio Pérez Nájer and Alejandro Hernández García, were found dead by machete attack on June 4, 2018. As human rights defenders for CODECA, they mainly advocated for farmers’ labor rights, land reform and the nationalization of electric energy.

Last month, the regional director of CODECA, Luis Arturo Marroquín, also Xinca, was fatally shoton May 9, 2018 in San Luis Jilotepeque central square when he was on his way to a training of Indigenous women. This came only a week after president Jimmy Morales made a speech that publicly defamed CODECA, which CODECA leaders believe “strengthen[ed] hatred and resentment” towards their organization.

In response to the murder of their colleagues, CODECA issued a press release, saying “While the murder of our friends hurts us dearly, it will never intimidate us. We will fight harder and more united to reach our goals and those of our deceased defenders and friends.”

In a speech from the community cemetery in Xinca territory of Xalapán, Thelma Cabrera Perez, National Director of CODECA, declared,  “What we demand is the defense of our rights and to live a dignified life [and] when we organize ourselves to defend our rights, that is when we are persecuted.”

In addition to the murders of these CODECA members, three other Indigenous Q’eqchi human rights defenders have been murdered this month; Ramon Choc Sacrab, José Can Xol and Mateo Chamám Paau from the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (Comité Campesino del Altiplano, CCDA). Attacks on human rights defenders has been on the rise in Guatemala, as UDEFEGUA reported 493 attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala in 2017. This is happening in the context of government attempts to criminalize and defame human rights organizations such as CODECA.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples condemned these murders in an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, calling them evidence of institutionalized racism against Guatemala’s Indigenous Peoples. The UN has also called out Guatemala in the past for its criminalization and imprisonment of human rights defenders. Guatemala has received 17 recommendations from UN member states through the Universal Periodic Review system to combat this wave of violence; for example,

In 2012, Australia recommended Guatemala to:  “Ensure effective and independent investigations into all reports of extrajudicial executions and ensure that reports of killings, threats, attacks and acts of intimidation against human rights defenders and journalists are thoroughly and promptly investigated and those responsible brought to justice’’

Often times, murders of Indigenous activists are not featured in mainstream news or media outlets, despite Indigenous activists constituting 40 percent of environmental activists murdered worldwide last year.

On June 12, 2018, CODECA supporters marched in protest to Guatemala City to “demand justice for the murder of their colleagues” and call for the resignation of president Jimmy Morales. They demand a fair investigation into the murders of those killed.

CODECA tweeted, “From the fields to the city, our southern contingency at the Trébol begins to organize. We demand justice for the assassination of our defenders; we demand the resignation of Jimmy Morales, his inept cabinet, and corrupt congressmen.”

CODECA is one of Cultural Survival’s grant partners for the community media grants project, through which it receives support for its radio programs on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, decolonization, and the establishment of a plurinational democratic nation.

Cultural Survival stands in solidarity with CODECA and firmly condemns these murders of Indigenous human rights defenders. We call for an immediate investigation into the pattern of violence against human rights defenders in Guatemala, in line with international human rights recommendations.

We join Amnesty International in demand authorities:

  • Initiate a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation on the recent killings of human rights defenders from  CODECA and CCDA. The investigation should include the theory of the attack being a possible retaliation for their legitimate activities as human rights defender.

  • Guarantee the safety of all CODECA and CCDA members at risk in accordance with their wishes;

  • Condemn the killings and publicly recognize the important and legitimate work of all human rights defenders in Guatemala and refrain from using language that discredits, stigmatizes, abuses, disparages or discriminates them.

Take Action:

https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-update-two-more-land-defenders-killed-guatemala-ua-97-18/

Cultural Survival Condemns the Killing of Maya Mam Woman Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez

Cultural Survival Condemns the Killing of Maya Mam Woman Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez

     by Cultural Survival

Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez was shot and killed by border patrol after crossing the border in Laredo, Texas on May 23, 2018. The border patrol agent who fired the shot fatally wounding Gomez Gonzalez remains on administrative leave.

Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, 19 years old, was from the Maya Mam community of San Juan Ostuncalco, Guatemala. She held a degree in accounting, but had not been able to secure a job.

Cultural Survival condemns this excessive use of force against another human being. We urge US immigration and border patrol agents to respect the rights of Indigenous people and all people who migrate, especially their right to life, regardless of their immigration status. Above all else, immigrants are people, and are protected under international human rights and humanitarian law. No human being is illegal; and no one should be executed while they are searching for a life free from poverty and violence. Indigenous lives matter.

Guatemalan officials have called for an “exhaustive, impartial investigation” into the killing, and denounced the violence as an excessive use of force, adding a call for respect to the rights of Guatemalan citizens and all those held by immigration control, “especially with respect to life.”

Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) states:

“Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.”

UNDRIP Article 7 states, “Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and mental integrity, liberty and security of person.”

On May 27, a group of 300 Guatemalans held a vigil in Los Angeles demanding investigation into the death of Gomez Gonzalez, reported Prensa Libre.  At least 25 people spoke at the vigil in a variety of Indigenous languages.  “Guatemalans are dignified people, who all carry dreams. Our compatriot had a dream and it was cut short. Xelajú lost a daughter, a good and honorable woman,” said Luis de la Vega at the vigil.

Walter Batres, of the Network of Guatemalan Migrants, one of the organizers of the vigil, noted “We want to make a tribute to her life, we want to be heard, to ask for justice and demand that the Guatemalan government take steps as well to clarify the facts.”

Indigenous Mental Health and the Psychological Political Warfare of the Nicaraguan State

Indigenous Mental Health and the Psychological Political Warfare of the Nicaraguan State

     by Intercontinental Cry

Intercontinental Cry has been reporting for almost exactly two years now on the escalating state-sponsored violence in Nicaragua, while many otherwise informed people remained stubbornly, loyally, and piously in denial –  clinging to the romantic Sandinista, anti-imperialist, revolutionary narrative… It’s charming; it really is. And, that’s why it has become so dangerous.

The recent mass uprising in Nicaragua is youth-led with decentralized leadership, much like the ‘Occupy Movement’ to the north – and, it has received some of the same criticism of the Occupy Movement regarding the lack of organized leadership. Yet, who is to blame a generation who grew up under a growing dictatorship for wanting their movement to be proactively more egalitarian, in practice not just propaganda?

Many of the original Sandinista fighters are the ones who are losing their retirement pensions right now; there is a broad consensus that the Ortega-Murrillo family dynasty does not embody the original Sandinista values and ideologies.

The mass current mobilization has even been termed a ‘Nicaraguan Spring’ –  which fully transcends any standard dichotomy between the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. It is challenging not just a dictatorship, but entrenched ideas about an ideologue figurehead who has concentrated power within his personal family to dangerous extremes and has support networks throughout the ‘pink tide’ socialist countries of Latin America as well as with Russia, and possibly even China and Iran1.

The renewed imperialist presence of Russia in Nicaragua – which is impossible to neatly abstract in terms of its impact on the current political climate –  poses increased threats as well. Russia has been participating in an ongoing process to remilitarize Nicaragua; and, such activity has long been recognized by regional analysts as potential preparation for this current mass dissent. How Russia’s role there will evolve in this context is somewhat worrisome and hard to predict. Their alliance with the otherwise impoverished country is more important to them than might be assumed.

Hence, Putin has in recent years: initiated a new ‘drug war’ on the ground there; provided ‘security’ for developments in President Daniel Ortega’s infamous plans to build an inter-oceanic canal with the help of a Chinese billionaire; and, has installed a secretive ‘surveillance center’ with satellite capabilities to monitor activity in almost all – if not all – of the Americas. Even people who live and work in the surrounding area of the center in Nicaragua do not seem to understand its true or full purpose.

At risk of burying the lede, it was important to consolidate some context for the Indigenous struggles in Moskitia (an autonomous, pluri-ethnic region which Nicaragua has a complicated relationship with…to put it lightly) which have been simmering at a slower, but consistently oppressive and violent, burn for years now.

This ‘complicated relationship’ included recent accusations that the Nicaraguan government willfully allowed a large chunk of traditional Indigenous (and uniquely biodiverse) territory of tropical rainforest to burn without proper response. The Nicaraguan government turned down help from neighboring Costa Rica to put out the massive forest fire. Many attributed this to a continuance of their longstanding efforts to expand the agricultural frontier into the autonomous Indigenous territory which is home to the second largest tropical rainforest in the Western Hemisphere – considered the ‘lungs of Central America’.

The impact of the loss of this rainforest cannot be understated. And, amid the chaos surrounding the massive fire, there were reports of roads being built into previously respected, and lawfully protected Indigenous Rama territory, which would in the future further facilitate resource extraction activity on their land.

How does all this tie into state propaganda about mental health?

To begin unpacking that, in February of 2018, the pan-South American socialist state-run, media outlet, TeleSUR, ran an article claiming that a “mysterious madness was crippling” Indigenous Peoples in this region where Sandinista forces have been trying to nationalize and gain control of the vast natural resources for decades.

The article – and its premise –  was beyond tacky, especially considering the deep and nuanced political undertones it was attempting to manipulate.

According to TeleSUR, “Nicaraguan anthropologists insist traditional techniques are best to treat the ‘grisi siknis’ outbreak; and, “Western medicinal treatments” cannot cure it.

At first blush, it all may sound really noble and  anti-imperialist…until one realizes they are, on one point, attempting to displace the region and Peoples’ historic and autonomous relationship with the United States – which was advocated for by the late (AIM) American Indian Movement leader, Russell Means.

As recently as 2013, Mayanga and Miskito Peoples in the region called on President Barack Obama for support in their fight to preserve their ancestral territories and the crucially biodiverse tropical rainforest.

During the Contra Wars, the U.S. also provided limited support to the Miskito, who were defending their ancestral territory from the Sandinista (and in some instances fleeing to refugee camps in Honduras – a practice which has unfortunately resumed in recent years and is perhaps escalating conflicts now – according to claims in another recent TeleSUR article which could not be independently verified — with Honduran authorities).

As Means put it, here was a chance for the U.S. government to: “For the first time in its history…ally itself with an Indian cause”.

Means also described Moskitia’s struggle against the Sandinista which was happening on the sidelines of the Contra-Sandinista (U.S.-Russia proxy) war as, “the foremost struggle for indigenous sovereignty in the world.”

Back to the recent propaganda of note…While it implies on the surface that the Nicaraguan state is validating a traditional Indigenous healing approach where there has been an ‘outbreak of insanity’… if one reads further, the article doesn’t actually concede that traditional medicine – as it is implemented by traditional regional healers –  is wholly sufficient, either…

According to the article, it took a Nicaraguan physician who had studied Indigenous cures, for it to be properly treated – by him, of course.

A ‘western psychologist’, interestingly, might diagnose the symptoms of ‘grisi siknis’ as a unique form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The Indigenous Peoples of the region have surely endured more than their share of trauma at the hands of the now ruling FSLN party in recent decades – which, again, has come to a significant head in the past month of country-wide unrest.

With this in mind, it becomes apparent there is a form of ‘gaslighting’ (manipulative psychological abuse which Psychology Todaydescribes as a tool of dictators) happening in this state-sponsored propaganda.

In Moskitia, ‘grisi siknis’ is recognized by traditional healers as a behavioral contagion limited to the isolated communities in the region. The communities have been long isolated as they endured many forms of ongoing attacks; and, while the manifestation of a unique set of post-traumatic stress symptoms – or, what is perhaps better described as an impact of ongoing traumatic stress – can be viewed in either more clinical or more holistic terms, if one’s worldview encompassed the overall phenomenon in purely ‘supernatural’ terms (as at least some Indigenous Miskito Indigenous healers do), then through this lens it would take on an optic of all-out spiritual warfare. And for many Miskito, it does.

Bullet holes from an assault rifle attack on the home of the Indigenous Miskito Elder, pictured above. Colonos arrive in the territories with sophisticated weaponry which many Miskito claim to bear serial numbers traceable to the Nicaraguan government. (Photo: Courtney Parker, 2016)

It is disturbing to ponder how many people may have been manipulated to internalize this grotesque attempt at ‘gaslighting’ the Miskito Peoples. The article attempts to confer to the masses that ‘collective madness’ is just somehow ‘common’ among this particular Indigenous group.

‘This particular Indigenous group’ – the Miskito – just also happen to be the most politically organized, out of all other Indigenous or other ethnic groups in the pluri-ethnic autonomous region of Moskitia, or elsewhere in Nicaragua.

Their political party, YATAMA – which is an acronym which translates into English as ‘Sons of Mother Earth’ –  is one of the only remaining strongholds of opposition to the FSLN in that region (which some have estimated holds up to or above 80% of the colonial borders of Nicaragua’s remaining natural resources, which the region’s Indigenous Peoples have stewarded and protected during their long-standing tenure there).

While it is true that symptoms of the culturally specific designated mental illness include panic and are often accompanied by acts (or delusional attempted acts) of violence – more specifically, they are often attempts at defense from an unseen attacker. What the article doesn’t say is that this behavior is being exhibited in a community that has long suffered ‘invisible’ (to the rest of the country and world) acts of violence from settler and state forces.

A bullet grazed right over the head of the Indigenous Miskito elder pictured above during the attack from Colonos in 2015. The attackers promised to return and inflict more deadly violence if they did not vacate their lands and home. (Photo: Courtney Parker 2016)

In this manner, the propaganda present in the TeleSUR article was also an attempt to legitimize the ongoing colonization efforts from settlers known as ‘Colonos’ (which translates simply from Spanish to ‘colonizers’) who arrive from the country’s interior regions or the Pacific coast. In recent years, these armed intruders have placed the frontier areas under a violent siege, sometimes claiming illegal land deeds – even though all property in Moskitia is communal – to the legally autonomous territories.

The framing of this mental health issue — which is considered unique to Miskito communities — deflects attention from the intolerable acts of violence the settlers routinely commit. It is further, an ostensibly blatant attempt at collective ‘victim blaming’.

It seems painfully obvious that the news outlet, which receives direct fiscal support from the Nicaraguan state, is trying to delegitimize the most politically powerful group of Indigenous Peoples – who are, again, the main challenge to the FSLN dictatorship in the region – who have no choice but to fight back against the heavily armed intruders to protect their families, communities, and sacred, ancestral (and legal) territories, and portray them as (or worse, convince them they are) ‘crazy’ and/or ‘insanely and unreasonably violent’.

A young Miskito girl in a frontier community stands in front of a group of community defenders who have been forced to take up primitive, make-shift weapons as they attempt to defend their families, land, culture, and the carbon-mitigating rainforest. (Photo: Courtney Parker, 2016)

IC spoke with a family who had recently fled the frontier community of Santa Clara while in Bilwi, where they had recently been displaced to, in 2016. They described how hard it was to make a living and feed their family in the more urban area of Bilwi (also known as Puerto Cabezas).

While Bilwi is also home to a more ‘urbanized’ –  or ‘urban-acclimated’ – population of Miskito Peoples, the refugees from the frontier are used to being able to live off the land and provide for their own food and shelter from it. Some individuals in the incoming waves of refugees have never used money; many children arrive without shoes; and, numerous children and adults speak only their Native tongue and no, or limited, Spanish.

Prior to the mass, country-wide uprising, there was a huge shake-up (which IC also covered) and outright revolt surrounding charges of electoral fraud waged on the FSLN after recent elections in Moskitia. One IC contributor recently documented the claims through independent sources. Investigations into the full extent of the fraud and activities amounting to voter suppression are still underway.

During this time, one of the only Miskito-speaking media outlets – the YATAMA political party’s community radio station – was burned to the ground by ‘Sandinista youth gangs’.

These such ‘gangs’ are now being recognized as state-sponsored paramilitaries by Nicaraguan analysts, as their violent and focused (it is said, directed) activities have become more widely scrutinized while they continue to inflict terror upon expanded regions across Nicaragua at this time.

For now, it is important that as the international human rights bodies are looking to Nicaragua – finally – and seeing the true nature of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship… that they be reminded of the still marginalized struggle of the Indigenous Peoples and other ethnic groups residing in Moskitia, in the Northern Caribbean coastal area.

It was here that the journalist, Angel Eduardo Gahona, was shot in the head while live-streaming the country-wide protests in Bluefields, Moskitia. The incident made international news, but with no recognition of how this shocking act of violence, amidst the recent gross abuses of government force, occurred in the traditionally Indigenous-led, pluri-ethnic, autonomous region which has a name of its own: La Moskitia2.

On a final and sobering note, two men have been arrested and transported to the capital city of Managua – charged with the assassination of Gahona. They are two Creole men, native to Moskitia, named Brandon Lovo and Glen Slate.

According to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, the victim’s own family is protesting this accusation and related charges. Members of the family have claimed the only people within range to shoot Gahona that night were Nicaraguan militarized state police – who had recently trumped up their presence in the region following the unrest after the fraudulent election, even before the countrywide protests commenced.

Juan Gahona told the Knight Center:

“PERSONALLY, I RULE OUT ANY POSSIBILITY I CAN LINK THESE GUYS TO ANGEL’S MURDER. WHY DO THEY HAVE TO TAKE THEM TO MANAGUA? THE CERTAIN THING IS THAT THEY TRANSFER THEM, TORTURE THEM […] AND MAKE THEM SAY THINGS THAT AREN’T, OUT OF FEAR, BECAUSE OF THREATS”.

Amnesty International released a new report on another massive outbreak of deadly violence from government forces and paramilitaries (as Nicaraguan analysts have come to call some pro-government mobs) on student protesters, Monday, May 29, 2018. Find their latest assessment of the situation, here.

1 Iran at one point expressed interest in garnering a stake in the Nicaraguan government’s canal plans as they were being facilitated by a Chinese billionaire, which was  – tellingly – to contain no treaty of neutrality or ‘maritime peace clause’ as is central to activity which may take place within the Panama Canal.

2 Traditional linguists insist it is more proper to spell it as ‘La Muskitia’, on grounds that there was no ‘o’ sound in the most ancient version of the Native tongue, but the above spelling has been largely embraced by its inhabitants.

The Tragic Death of Peruvian Indigenous Healer Olivia Arévalo

The Tragic Death of Peruvian Indigenous Healer Olivia Arévalo

     by  and  / openDemocracy via Intercontinental Cry

Leader of the Shipibo-konibo community, Olivia Arévalo Lomas, was 81 years old when she was shot in the chest and murdered. The principal suspect, Canadian Paul Woodroffe, died a few hours later.

The leader, practitioner of traditional medicine and defender of the Peruvian Amazon, Olivia Arévalo Lomas, of Shipibo-konibo ethnicity, was 81 years old when she was murdered last Thursday by two 380 calibre shots to the chest.

The main suspect, Canadian Paul Woodroffe died shortly after: a group of community members dragged him through the streets and beat him to death.

Olivia was a known shaman of Victoria Gracia, an intercultural settlement in the district of Yarinacocha. “Her death is an aggression against the entire Shipibo community. She was the living memory of her people” explained Juan Carlos Ruíz Molleda, coordinator of the department of indigenous communities and constitutional litigation of the NGO Institute of Legal Defence.

THE DAY THAT THEY MURDERED OLIVIA, ANOTHER WOMAN FROM THE SHIPIBO COMMUNITY, MAGDALENA FLORES AGUSTÍN, RECEIVED AN ANONYMOUS ENVELOPE AT HER HOME. INSIDE THERE WERE TWO BULLETS AND A LETTER DIRECTED TO HER AND HER HUSBAND.

It was not only members of her own Shipibo community, a village of more than 35,000 people that inhabit the amazon rainforest of Peru that turned to the guardian. She also attended to dozens of tourists who sailed for more than 15 hours down the river Ucayali to cure themselves of illnesses and to treat addictions.

“She was a grandmother who worked with medicinal plants”, Wilder Muñoz Díaz told Cosecha Roja, a traditional Shipibo doctor from a nearby community that shared healing ceremonies with Olivia. “It was very painful for us finding about her death”, he added.

Despite the main leads regarding the crime having discarded the possibility it might have been a political crime, indigenous communities have remained on alert.

The murder of the Amazonian guardian occurred in a context of territorial conflict between the Shipibo community and companies that desire to take over their land to cultivate palm oil.

The exploitation of the Peruvian amazon “affects the subsistence” of every community within the region explains Ruíz Molleda. They contaminate rivers where people wash themselves and fish, and they destroy the land in which the animals they hunt live.

In the past few years, around 6000 hectares of rainforest were deforested by companies who were operating illegally.

“The communities don’t want to sell their lands and that’s when hitmen start appearing”, according to Ruíz Molleda. In 2013 Mauro Pío Peña, historic leader of the Ashaninka community, was murdered by two hitmen.

The following year, Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quintisima Meléndez, Francisco Pinedo Ramírez and Jorge Ríos Pérez, leaders from the Ashaninka community, were also murdered.

The suspicions point to wood extraction entrepreneurs that illegally exploit the amazon rainforest and drug traffickers who had threatened them. In 2015, other leaders and members of the Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya were threatened.

The day that they murdered Olivia, another woman from the Shipibo community, Magdalena Flores Agustín, received an anonymous envelope at her home. Inside there were two bullets and a letter directed to her and her husband: “you have 48 hours to leave here. One bullet for each of you”.

The investigators of the crime are following two leads: according to the first version, on the 19th of April the Canadian Woodroffe arrived at Olivia’s house by motorbike. When she left to go to the shops he shot her twice in the chest.

Two days later the police found the body of the Canadian buried on their terrain. They arrived there after discovering a video on social media in which several men can be seen lynching Woodroffe.

The investigators suspect that the neighbours of the leader caught him when he tried to escape and they dragged him with a rope around his neck whilst they beat him. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Justice of Ucayali ordered the capture of the two men who appear in the video.

“What happened with the supposed suspect of the murder of Olivia Arévalo is not indigenous justice and it has nothing to do with it” explained Ruíz Molleda.

The Peruvian constitution establishes that the authorities within indigenous and rural communities may carry out justice in their own territory according to their customs. “But always with respect for human rights”, explained the lawyer of the NGO Legal Defence.

The Shipibo Konibo Xetebo Council (Coshicox), the highest authority within the Shipibo – Konibo – Xetebo community, condemned the crime and declared that justice is compatible with indigenous culture.

The Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Alfluentes (Feconau) also asked the state to provide guarantees to other indigenous leaders that receive death threats and harassment.

This article was originally published at OpenDemocracy and re-published at IC under a Creative Commons License.