FACTORTIERRA

An organization could be created just to set a lawsuit against opposers.   By Julio Vásquez Calle (Water, Democracy, and Development Regional Network)   PIURA CITY, Peru – In July 2008, Piura’s 5 th Prosecution Office began questionnaries to people accused of terrorism – farmer leaders, mayors, NGO members among them.   The notified were San Ignacio (Cajamarca)’s Mayor Carlos Martínez Solano, president of Northern Border Sustainable Development Front(FDSFN by its initials in Spanish), Ayabaca’s Mayor Humberto Marchena, Huancabamba’s Mayor Valentín Quevedo, el Carmen de la Frontera’s Mayor Ismael Huayama, and Ayabaca’s First Councellor Deiber Flores, as well as San Ignacio’s Municipal Manager Euler Jave Díaz.   Also included were Javier Janhcke Benavente (Fedepaz), Wilson Ramiro Ibañez (Muqui Network), Biologist Fidel Torres , Mario Tabra Guerrero among others.   Most of the accused are representatives of farmer people in Piura Andes and San Ignacio that are...

By Liliana Alzamora Flores and Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo   TAMBOGRANDÉ, Peru – The 1999 scenario was repeating in 2008 with all the elements setting up the same way, without real leaderships that tried not to repeat the same events causing a struggle that wore away a town. The coming of Araci, a low-budget Peruvian mining company, was similar to Manhattan Minerals , what means undermining and promising more than it really could get.   As it’s remembered, the Canadian mining company promised an economic paradise whom already have built their own economic paradise, by using a double rhetoric that ended to insult the intelligence of businesspersons dedicated to agriculture in San Lorenzo Valley .   Although the scenarios seemed to change a little, the direction that each actor moved on was outrageously the same because, despite the evidence, nobody seemed to be intended on making the first step and establishing a firm position to defend what they got after June 2 nd , 20...

The routine consists in working, spending, looking like, an waiting for… the next month.   All photographs by Estany Tineo for FACTORTIERRA.    SULLANA, Peru – So near, so far. The towns of Upper Chira Valley’s left bank stand just 20 minutes away Sullana City , and it seems a world aside. So near, so far. The people hold very god TV’s, sound systems, freezers, but what hardly could be found in a house is running water, or, at least, a latrine that guarantees the excrement won’t be anywhere.   So near, so far. Amid the modern furniture, the most houses continue building of pasted mud and mud bricks, so near… so far. The mud is the only one connecting the people of this part of Upper Chira to their ancestors. The archaeologist Daniel Davila , who accompanied us before researching in Malingas Community , suspects tallán people went around looking for agricultural lands, taking Chira River as water source.   The green mantle The archeology is ...

Are there mining agents using the same methods for dismissing their debunkers?   by Liliana Alzamora Flores & Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo   SULLANA, Peru – An environmentalist leader denounces attempts against his environment and he doesn’t shut up despite the threats. He’s murdered and his killer leaves many clues to discover him, but by some reason –and there are documents proving it—his closest son in the fight ends becoming the top suspect of a criminal fact.   It’s the case of Arsecio Gonza Castillo but it’s also the same model of another happened in 2001 with the beloved Godofredo Garcia Baca . Was the same script followed up, or is there a criminal involvement for real on behalf of a justice that has been blocked?  Is it a vendetta?  But whose against whom?   Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011, four handmade miners were murdered near a minehole in Pueblo Nuevo de Santa Rosa Town, Suyo District , Ayabaca. It started to awake and the miner...