Achuar indigenous leader Segundo García Sandi began a hunger strike Jan. 7 to demand his freedom at Huayabamba prison in Iquitos, Peru. García Sandi was arrested Dec. 5, on charges of tampering with an oil pipeline run by Argentine company Pluspetrol [5] through his people's territory in the remote north of Loreto department. He claims he is being held illegally without evidence, but a habeas corpus action filed by his supporters has met with no response by Peru's judicial authorities. García Sandi's organization, the Río Corrientes Federation of Native Communities (FECONACO [6]), asserts the arrest is retaliation for his demands for environmental justice. FECONACO reports that five Achuar children died in December as a result of contamination related to oil operations in the area, and that a state of emergency [7] announced by Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal in October for the Corrientes Valley, calling for special monitoring, is going unenforced. The Environment Ministry [8] in November took the rare step of fining Pluspetrol $7 million for contamination to the Loreto rainforest. (Servindi [9], Jan. 11; La Región [10], Loreto, Jan. 8; Mariátegui [11] blog, Jan. 7; La Región [12], Dec. 20; AP [13], Nov. 27)
