"Peru now has a ‘licence to kill’ environmental protesters"  - 29 June 2014

Some of the recent media coverage about the fact that more than 50 people in Peru…are on trial following protests and fatal conflict in the Amazon over five years ago missed a crucial point…[T]he hearings are…going ahead…but what about the government functionaries who apparently gave the riot police the order to attack the protestors…The conflict broke out in northern Peru after mainly indigenous Awajúns and Wampis had been peacefully protesting a series of new laws which were supposedly emitted to comply with a trade agreement between Peru and the US and which made it easier…for extractive industries to exploit natural resources in their territories…[E]arly on 5 June the police moved to clear [the protest] and started shooting. In the ensuing conflict, 10 police officers, five indigenous people and five non-indigenous civilians were killed, more than 200 injured... “We continue considering this law as one that grants the armed forces as well as the national police a licence to kill,” Quispe told the Guardian. “It permits a high degree of impunity. During the repression of social protests, police officers and soldiers who cause injuries or deaths will now be exempt from criminal responsibility”…