We denounce the persecution of peasant and indigenous leaders and the assassination of protesters in Peru
Solidarity Statement of La Vía Campesina
(Bagnolet, December 18, 2022) Faced with the critical situation that the Peruvian people are going through, especially the peasant and indigenous sector of the country, La Via Campesina is in full solidarity with the feelings of the people who at this moment are being criminalized and losing their lives in the streets of the country.
On Saturday, December 17, the Peruvian intelligence police, DIRCOTE, raided the premises of the Confederación Campesina del Perú – CCP, to arrest and interrogate the peasants who were gathered there. For over 14 hours, dozens of them were held against their will in the CCP premises. The police also denied the lawyers (who speak native languages) to access to premises – thus effectively undermining the guarantee to the right to defense of all without discrimination. The CCP premises served as a place of refuge and care for hundreds of peasants who had come from various parts of Peru to exercise their right to protest.
We denounce the persecution of peasant and indigenous leaders, members of the organizations Confederación Campesina del Perú, FENMUCARINAP and the Confederación Nacional Agraria – CNA, who are part of La Via Campesina; as well as other national and local indigenous leaders, for whom we call to be vigilant about their lives and fundamental rights. Being leaders does not make them terrorists! Stop criminalizing peasant struggles!
We also denounce the serious violation of human rights that the illegitimate government of Dina Boluarte is exercising against the population that is mobilizing in this context of political crisis. We condemn the assassination of 20 people (official figure recognized by the Peruvian State), three of them minors, and the serious situation in which half a thousand people are injured. We demand immediate justice for the victims and their families.
We condemn the use of the “State of Emergency” imposed by the government to assassinate, intimidate and criminalize the demonstrators. The majority of the affected people are part of indigenous peoples who have historically been violated and ignored in their struggles and demands.
We embrace the demands of the peasant and indigenous movement of the country to demand the advancement of National Elections and the closure of the Congress. The peasant and indigenous organizations are demanding a Plurinational Constituent Assembly process, as a structural solution to this political crisis and in favor of Food Sovereignty and Peasant Rights.
Four years after the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) we need to echo the serious violation of the rights of peasants and rural peoples that is taking place in Peru and around the world. As a global movement representing millions of peasants around the world, La Via Campesina calls on social movements and international institutions to ensure that these events do not go unpunished and to support the demands of the Peruvian people that contribute to the consolidation of a real democracy that responds to the popular will and the full rights of the population.
Stop criminalizing the peasant struggles and the Peruvian people!
Globalize the struggle, globalize hope !
#PeasantsRightsNOW #NoFutureWithoutFoodSovereignty #PeasantsAlert