“The government of Alan Garcia in Peru is implementing free trade policies that are demeaning the rights of Indigenous peoples to their territories in the Amazon forest and the Andes mountains. Mining, oil, gas, logging and other extractive industries are damaging the environment, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sick with high levels of air, water and food pollution. Thousands of Andean Indigenous peoples are dying because of freezing temperatures, but the government doesn’t want to invest in social infrastructure even though it exported over $37 billion dollars of natural resources in 2008.

Since 2007 the social protest has been criminalized by the government of Peru, and over 1,000 community leaders have been prosecuted as criminals. Media in Peru is being manipulated, the rights of most Peruvians are not considered, campaigns criminalize Indigenous peoples protests. Violent repression has caused dozens of civilian casualties since 2006.

Racism in the media and government policies, in education and in every level of society have created a huge gap in living conditions and opportunities, discriminating people of Indigenous and African heritage, especially rural communities where over 70% of people live in poverty. Meanwhile corruption is wide spreading.

Join this group to coordinate simple but effective actions of protest and to advocate for social justice in Peru, and to create worldwide awareness of the negative impact of free trade and racist policies of the current government in Peru.”