Peru's government is ignoring new UN guidelines on the protection of isolated indigenous peoples in the Amazon, Survival International charged last week. The landmark February report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "Norms for Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact of the Amazon Region, Gran Chaco and Oriental Region of Paraguay" (PDF, in Spanish), makes clear that the lands of isolated tribes should be untouchable, and that "no rights should be granted that involve the use of natural resources." However, Peru is allowing the country’s largest gas project to expand further into indigenous territories known to house numerous uncontacted Indians. The expansion plan adds to existing controversies around Argentine gas giant Pluspetrol and its notorious Camisea project in southeast Peru.

Presumed guerillas of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) movement seized a work camp of the Camisea Consortium April 9 at Kepashiato community, La Convención province, Cuzco region, holding captive the 30 workers there. Several hours later, all but seven were released—sent walking towards the Kepashiato village center, where the National Police established a command post after the hostage-taking. The seven remaining are employees of the Skanska and Coga construction companies, which are contracted by the consortium. National Police say they believe the armed men are Sendero militants who entered La Convención Valley from the Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE), a pocket of jungle just over a mountain range to the northwest where a surviving Sendero column is active. (WSJ, Reuters, La Republica, RPP,Terra Peru, April 9)

The corregidores of the Subcentral section of the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in Bolivia's eastern lowlands voted March 19 to hold a new cross-country march on La Paz to oppose construction of a road through their territory. The "Ninth Indigenous March," scheduled for April 20, will protest construction of the next phase of the highway linking Villa Tunari in Cochabamba department with San Ignacio de Moxos in Beni, as well as Law 222, passed earlier this year to facilitate indigenous "consultation" on the road project. Pedro Vare, leader of the Indigenous Peoples Central of Beni (CPIB), said meetings would be held to bring more communities into the march. The Subcentral section represents 42 of the 64 indigenous communities in the TIPNIS. Vare accused the Evo Morales government of attempting to divide the territory's indigenous communities by distributing food, clothing, outboard motors and other gifts. (Erbol, March 19)

The UN's International Labor Organization (ILO) released a report by a committee of experts March 3 finding that the Brazilian government violated the rights of indigenous people by moving forward on the massive Belo Monte dam without consulting native communities. The report follows a request last year by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the Brazilian government to suspend the dam, which is currently being built on the Rio Xingu River in Pará state, in the Amazon Basin. It has met with repeated angry protests by the Kayapo and other local indigenous peoples.

A day of pitched street-fighting on March 14 left three dead, some 35 wounded and 60 detained in Puerto Maldonado, capital of Peru's lowland Madre de Dios region, as small-scale independent gold miners continued their paro (civil strike) to oppose the government's announced crackdown on their activities. Thousands of miners blocked the city's streets, and attempted to seize the airport and the newly built Continental Bridge over the Rio Madre de Dios. Protesters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at helmented National Police troops in full military gear, who responded with tear gas and live rifle fire.

Representatives of indigenous organizations in Peru met in Lima Feb. 20 to announce that they have rejected proposed implementing regulations for the new Law of Prior Consultation for Indigenous and Original Peoples, and submitted proposals for improving it. Alberto Pizango, national leader of the Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP called on the government to extend approval of the regulations by 30 days to accommodate indigenous leaders' recommendations. He singled out the demand that binding consultation apply to oil and mineral projects already underway, not only new ones. "We appeal to dialogue, we only want to defend our rights," he said. Leading organizations in the Multisectoral Commission that evaluated the regulations included AIDESEP, the Agrarian Confederation of Peru (CNA) and the National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Women (ONAMIAP).

Peru on Feb. 8 raided an illegal logging site in Manú National Park, Madre de Dios region—just days after the UK-based Survival International released the first detailed photos of the "uncontacted" Mashco-Piro tribe that inhabits the reserve. In an operation led by SERNANP, Peru's agency for protected areas, park guards and police uncovered more than 3,000 feet of illegally harvested timber. SERNANP's two-day operation led to the arrest of a group of men and confiscation of their tools. The men face prison terms of three to six years. Sightings of the Mashco-Piro have risen in recent months, with many blaming illegal loggers for pushing the tribe out of their forest home.

On the night of Feb. 9, Bolivia's Plurinational Assembly passed a new law mandating a consultation process for indigenous communities in the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS)—billed as a "compromise" between proponents and opponents of the proposed road through the reserve. The new law threatens to undermine the existing law that cancelled the highway in October and now protects the TIPNIS as an "untouchable" ecological zone. The consultation law was developed by ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) legislative leaders in conjunction with CONISUR, an indigenous organization that favors the road project. It was approved by the MAS-controlled legislature in less than a week, and promptly signed into law by President Evo Morales—sparking an immediate outcry from indigenous leaders opposed to the road.