We see the indigenous leader making mistakes (declaring the protest an 'insurgency' in a country that suffered decades of appalling violence on account of a Shining Path 'insurgency' was not a wise move). It is our duty to look after it so that we hand to future generation in a good a state or better than we found it,' he says. 'We only borrow the land, we do not own it. Film footage of rivers turned into hellish ponds of crude oil and forests stripped bare by logging, show us what he is talking about. If we contaminate it and it will die and so will we. Don't destroy nature for short-term gain, he says. Pizango speaks simply but with a depth of environmental wisdom. No government official has been brought to justice to date over the affair. Over 50 protesters remain charged with crimes associated with the Bagua events Pizango and three other indigenous leaders are accused of inciting murder, kidnapping and conspiracy against the state – charges they deny. But deals are still made with foreign corporations 'under the table' and without consulting the indigenous inhabitants of the land. We see him at every stage, in his rainforest community, bathing, chatting intimately with his father, addressing a meeting in Lima, lobbying politicians, escaping arrest by climbing out of the window in exile in Nicaragua, then returning to face the music in 2010 and finally giving evidence in the first phase of the trials against the Bagua protesters in 2013.īy then the hated laws had been repealed in a government climbdown and Garcia was no longer in power.
The story of the massacre at Bagua has been told before, including in this magazine by our regular contributor in Peru, Stephanie Boyd.īut what makes this documentary exceptional is the proximity to Pizango that the filmmakers enjoyed over a period of several years.
WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE TV
As one TV journalist had predicted, the government's approach to the crisis had all the wisdom of 'dropping a match on gasoline'.Īn understanding between indigenous protesters and police that they wouldn't attack each other – 'brother police, our fight is not with you but with the government', was one indigenous chant – fell by the wayside.ĭuring two days of violence, 23 police officers and 10 civilians lost their lives and hundreds were injured. Word spread that a genocide was taking place and so elsewhere a group of indigenous activists seized 38 police at a Petro Peru installation and threatened to kill them. This film captures the attack in all its shocking ferocity, taking us right to the frontline of the action. (We now know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the Peruvian government was being pressured by the US to use force against the protesters).
WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE FULL
The following morning, government forces launched a full scale attack on indigenous protesters, moving into the town itself. Police, trying to clear a roadblock near the Amazonian town of Bagua, opened fire on protesters who retaliated with spears. In Congress, parliamentarians who were about to debate repealing the contentious new laws, were suddenly stopped from debating them.Īnd on 5 June 2009, the war of words descended into violence. There were mass mobilizations of indigenous people and road blocks that threatened the national economy. Their appointed leader, the quietly charismatic Alberto Pizango, set about trying to get an intransigent government to repeal the laws. These people soon cottoned on to the fact that the new laws passed by the Garcia administration to make their ancestral lands 'open to business', without consulting them, were unconstitutional and contrary to international accords ( ILO 169, chiefly.)
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