Peru's Top Indigenous Leader Says Industry, Traffickers Behind Shaman Slayings

[slimvictor]

Iquitos, Peru - It's been more than one month since Peru's government sent investigators to the Amazon to probe the brutal murders and mutilation of at least 14 shamans, traditional healers or medicos, of the indigenous Shawi people of Peru's northern border region near Ecuador.

Since then, the government has remained mum and, so far, has made no arrests, or at least has not made any known. Early reports focused on the Evangelical Christian mayor of the river port town of Balsapuerto, citing officials who accused him of instigating a fanatical religious purge.

But Alberto Pizango, Peru's top indigenous leader and president of the country's most powerful indigenous organization, the Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest (known by its Spanish acronym, AIDESEP) paints a more complex picture of the case, blaming cash and pressure from legal and illegal industries in the Amazon who poach natural resources from indigenous lands.

"What is happening now in my community is organized crime," said Pizango, himself a Shawi medico who studied for seven years under a master shaman.

cont at
http://www.truth-out.org/perus-top-...traffickers-behind-shaman-slayings/1323201142

 

[Newbierock]

Amazing how much trouble religion can cause. But lets not forget the good it's done too.

 

[23536]

I believe it, We've been colonizing and murdering these people for 500 years, even though their lives are probably more satisfying than ours.

I recommend, to anybody who can tolerate a foreign movie, the 1982 Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo. It's one of the 25 best movies I've seen (I made a list), and I wasn't expecting it to be so good.

 

[strangefamiliarity]

Yes, the cycle of destruction and class system continues. Another movie I would recommend if you can stand a foreign movie is Even the Rain.
SF

 

[pkt]

according to the government the traffickers are terrorists, these so called terrorists gain nothing from this, government conspiracies and news that never comes out inside this country.

 

[DexterMeth]

Amazing how much trouble religion can cause. But lets not forget the good it's done too.

This has nothing to do with religion nor politics.... it's about money (which is the basis for the 2).

RElegalize all drugs.

 

[slimvictor]

RElegalize all drugs.

Hell YES!
Many major problems would be solved (and some new challenges created) at a fell swoop.
But we as human beings living on this earth deserve this basic freedom.