Canadians ask Federal Government to Halt Ratification of Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement in Light of Peruvian Police Massacre of Indigenous Protesters

OTTAWA, ONTARIO – Non-governmental organizations are urgently asking Canadians to write to
senators, MPs and the Prime Minister to express their outrage at the police massacre of peaceful
Indigenous protesters in Peru, and to demand that the Canadian government halt its implementation
of the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that is now before the Senate as Bill C-24.

On Friday, June 5, an estimated 600 Peruvian police officers in helicopters and on foot opened fire on
thousands of peaceful Indigenous protesters blocking a road near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon. For
the past two months, over 30,000 Indigenous Peruvians have sustained nonviolent protests along the
roads and waterways of the Amazon in response to a series of presidential decrees issued in advance
of the implementation legislation for potential U.S. and Canadian free trade agreements.

Protestors point out that these decrees violate indigenous rights, discourage environmental protection
of the Peruvian rainforest and open the way for an unprecedented expansion of new transnational
petroleum, mining, logging and plantation agriculture. Indigenous leaders are calling for international
solidarity to safeguard the Amazon, 72 per cent of which is already leased for petroleum exploration
and extraction, almost half of it by Canadian companies.

One Canadian company that will benefit directly from this rollback of indigenous rights is the Albertabased
petrochemical firm Petrolifera. The Peruvian government recently signed an agreement with
Petrolifera to explore land inhabited by one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes – a decision that the
Instituto del Bien Comun has appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Conservative estimates put the death toll of last week’s police attack at 60 Indigenous protesters and
police officers killed in retaliation, but police have since been accused of burning bodies, throwing
them in the river, and removing the wounded from hospitals to hide the real number of casualties.

“Is this the kind of development the Harper government is trying to encourage by signing a free trade
deal with Peru,” asks Stuart Trew, Trade Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “Canadians would
be appalled to learn that rights and environmental protection measures are being sacrificed to enrich
Calgary’s oil patch.”

“If anyone still had doubts about the true nature of these free trade agreements, the actions of the
Peruvian government make it clear that they are really about putting foreign investment ahead of
everything else, including the livelihoods – and even the lives – of indigenous people,” adds Jamie
Kneen, Communications and Outreach Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. “Canada is the largest
investor in Peru’s mining sector. President Alan Garcia claims this is development, but it’s a
destructive model of development. If people are being killed on behalf of Canadian investors, to
promote and protect investment projects on Indigenous land, then their blood is on our hands.”

This month, the Canadian Senate is debating Bill C-24, the implementing legislation for the CanadaPeru
free trade agreement. Non-governmental organizations are asking that people write to Senators
and government officials to ask them to immediately suspend the bill.

“Canadians need to send a strong message by writing to our government officials indicating that we
stand with the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon and that we reject the killing and
destruction promoted by free trade legislation currently before legislatures both in Canada and the US.
This deadly trade deal must be halted immediately,” says Rick Arnold, Coordinator for Common
Frontiers-Canada.