EVO Blames FTA for Peru Clashes

[magbana]

"Evo Blames FTA for Peru Clashes
Escrito por Ana Luisa Brown
domingo, 14 de junio de 2009

La Paz, Jun 14 (Prensa Latina) 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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http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=91852&Itemid=73

[rabs]

1. Peru's ambassador to La Paz has left Bolivia

Amb. Fernando Rojas was recalled to Lima "for consultations" and left today (Monday). Before leaving he told journalists that relations between Peru and Bolivia were "extremely complicated." No date was mentioned for his return to La Paz, or whether he will return.

The recall was in response to Morales using the word "genocide" in describing the U.S.-Peru FTA and linking the FTA to the deaths in Bagua last week.