"COMMUNITIES IN BLOCK 95 DEMAND IMPLEMENTATION OF PREVIOUS AGREEMENTS", 26 March 2022

...AIDESEP, the national Amazonian indigenous organization, has announced its support for 17 Kukama indigenous communities living within Block 95 in the Loreto region which have effectively paralysed PetroTal’s operations since 28 February. It has also criticised the national government for bringing in police and military to control the situation. On 9 February, the local indigenous federation AIDECOBAP had given the state notice to launch negotiations by 28 February. However, according to the indigenous leader James Pérez, when community representatives met with state authorities on 18 March, the latter condemned the protest and sent in the military to restore order.

The communities are demanding that both the company and the state implement agreements made after a conflict in Bretaña in August 2020 when three indigenous people were killed and eleven were injured by police. The Bishop of Iquitos, Miguel Ángel Cadenas, has called for calm and the avoidance of violence. After the 2020 conflict, officials from both the state and PetroTal agreed to a number of measures to meet the demands that had prompted the indigenous takeover. One was the commitment by PetroTal to create an indigenous fund with the transfer of 2.5% of the value of the oil extracted, an agreement yet to be certified by the state...

AIDESEP ended its statement by announcing that “the peoples of the Amazon will not allow the imposition of development projects by force without our consent and without our direct participation in the economic benefits generated by them”...