Police officers take up positions during clashes with native people in Bagua province June 5, 2009. Thomas Quirynen / ReutersFrom Time Magazine:
Peruvian President Alan Garcia is furious. His plans to open huge parts of the country's Amazon jungle to foreign investors are crumbling and the woman he was grooming to lead the Cabinet is politically wounded, a casualty of violent protests by indigenous people in the northern jungle last weekend.
According to the official count, 32 people — 23 police officers and nine protesters — were killed June 5 when long-running demonstrations by indigenous people against oil development spun out of control. Hundreds more were injured and arrested. The violence was unleashed when police officers received word from Lima, the capital, to remove the protesters who were blocking a highway and the nearby pumping station on the northern pipeline. The officers moved in with tear gas and automatic weapons. The protesters were mainly armed with spears, but some had guns. Fighting along the tragically named Devil's Curve took 20 lives, while 12 police officers were killed at the pumping station. The stretch of highway around 500 miles north of Lima in Amazonas state has now been cleared of demonstrators but the indigenous protests, which entered its third full month June 9, are not over and the political fallout for Garcia and his government is just beginning.
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