COMMENTS on letter of Amazon Watch, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental

Investigation Agency, Center for International Environmental Law, Global Witness,

Oxfam America, Shantung Office on Latin America related to US-Peru Trade Promotion

Agreement (US-Peru TPA)-

The fact that the US has not endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous

Peoples is ignored in this letter to the US officials.

Note:

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 8th Session

New York, May 18-29, 2009

Opening Statement by the Participants at the Global Indigenous Peoples' Caucus

meeting from May 16-17, 2009

Agenda Item 3(c) Second International Decade of World's Indigenous Peoples

1.  We urge member states that any and all Free Trade Agreements must recognize,

respect and implement mechanisms for the protection of the rights contained in the

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

Extracts:

We are writing to request that the United States government take immediate, concrete

and public action to help resolve the escalating social and political crisis in

Peru.  This crisis has resulted from protest over the content of laws that have been

justified by the government of Peru as being required by the United States - Peru

Trade Promotion Agreement (U.S.-Peru TPA).  The U.S. government should clarify this

situation immediately, explaining whether repeal of the contested decrees, or

specific provisions in them that are cause for dispute, would jeopardize the

U.S.-Peru TPA.

This paragraph not not address the Right of Self Determination of the Indigenous

Peoples, or the Principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

One of the central demands of the indigenous protests - first launched nearly a year

ago and taken up again in the last two months - is the repeal of several legislative

decrees passed in 2008 under special legislative powers that the Peruvian Congress

granted to President Garcia to facilitate the implementation of the U.S.-Peru TPA

and promote economic competitiveness for its effective use.  Indigenous federations

and many civil society organizations have strongly protested the possible

consequences of these laws for the Amazon rainforest and indigenous land rights, as

well as the fact that they were adopted without transparency or genuine

consultation, in apparent contradiction of U.S.-Peru TPA commitments, ILO Convention

169, the American Convention on Human Rights[1] and the UN Declaration on the Rights

of Indigenous People.  The Constitutional Committee of the Peruvian Congress

recently declared two of these decrees unconstitutional, yet the debate on the floor

of the Peruvian Congress has been repeatedly postponed, precipitating the

intensification of the protests and a constitutional and political crisis.

CONSULTATION IS NOT CONSENT, a tactic used by the World Bank to diminish the

position of the Indigenous Peoples from a Rights Holder to only a "stake holder"

position.

 UNACCEPTABLE. 

2. Communicate publicly that it supports processes which take into account the views

of indigenous peoples and civil society, and that it stands ready to work with Peru

to address constructively the remaining concerns around Legislative Decree DL1090,

while ensuring compliance with and implementation of the U.S.-Peru TPA.

VIEWS: UNACCEPTABLE

Instead, RIGHTS as Peoples under international law with the Right of

Self-Determination.

We look forward to learning what actions the U.S. Government will take in the coming

days to help ensure that there is no further violence in the Peruvian Amazon as a

result of this crisis and to work with Peru in a way that resolves the concerns of

the indigenous population, comports with Peruvian and international law, and is

consistent with the U.S.-Peru TPA.

POPULATION: What are we, vermin?

The term POPULATION, POPULATIONS (plural) has been rejected as a reference under the

international legal system of the UN as a DENEGRATION and violation of the the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples to INTERNATIONAL PERSONALITY as PEOPLES, and should

NEVER be used to identify the issues of the INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, in particular by

those who would present themselves as our allies in the International Arena.

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli